by Ladew, Lisa
West got out of the car and she heard him talking to Blaise through his open window. “Good to see you bro, you got news?”
“Yeah.”
Blaise’s voice sounded off to Katerina. She turned in her seat to see his face. He looked even more tired and haggard than the last time she’d seen him a few hours ago. She was starting to wonder about his health and sanity. She knew he had been putting in sixteen hour days at the police department, working on this case.
“We have news too,” West said. “Come in. Jordan will be here in a second.”
The trio started up the stairs to Katerina’s apartment, Katerina watching the entrance to the parking lot the entire time for Jordan’s car. Just before she unlocked her door, the small sedan finally pulled in and Katerina let out the breath she had been holding.
She waited at the top of the stairs for Jordan, a flash of irritation rearing up in her when she noticed West standing just inside the door for her. Her muscles tensed involuntarily and she tried to relax them. Not this again!
Jordan bounded up the stairs, a drink holder in her hands. “I got coffee for everyone.”
Katerina shook her head. “None for me thanks, I want to sleep tonight.”
Jordan pushed in the door past her and offered a coffee to West. She turned back to Katerina. “Are you sure you don’t want any because if you don’t maybe Blaise does.”
“I’m sure.”
Katerina watched Blaise as Jordan walked up to him. Blaise had sat on the couch and his eyes were following Jordan closely. Katerina saw him take in Jordan’s tight outfit, the one they had asked her to wear, but she couldn’t tell if he was approving or disapproving. One thing was sure, he didn’t seem to be able to look away.
West double checked that the door was locked and then sat across from Blaise. Blaise finally tore his eyes off of Jordan and held up a hand to West. “Before you tell me anything, you should know I’m off the case. I’ve even been expressly forbidden from talking to you guys about it.”
The apartment was completely quiet for a good twenty seconds, before Katerina and West erupted. Jordan made an oh boy face, and fell into a chair at the dining room table.
“But why!?”
“Because you stood up for me? That’s not right!”
“As far as I can tell, there’s no good reason other than that I pissed off Gagne. He thinks because he’s the detective I should be licking his boots, and I certainly shouldn’t be challenging him about who he investigates or arrests.”
“So what now?” West asked, anger heavily lining his face.
Blaise shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I’ll finally get some sleep. And I’ll have some time to deal with … uh, some personal issues that have come up. But I don’t know how much they plan on sharing with you two now. You might be completely out of the loop, if Gagne has anything to say about it.”
West stood up and Katerina felt the waves of anger coming off of him. Blaise threw him a weary glance but kept talking. “Look, I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to find out from now on, but a few things have been uncovered in the last twelve hours. Gagne can kiss my ass if he thinks I’m not telling you.”
West sat down and looked at Blaise expectantly.
Blaise pulled out his little notebook and paged through it. “Okay, the medical examiner has been working on this day and night. I think he’s getting even less sleep than I am. He seems to be personally offended that Frank Phillips worked for him for so long and he never knew the guy was a killer. So somehow, he got a name on two of the women. And when you hear where they are from, you’ll know how big of a feat that was.”
Katerina leaned forward excitedly. She’d watched Silence of the Lambs. She knew that if you knew who the victims were, you had a better chance of figuring out who the killer was.
“They are mail order brides from Russia.”
Katerina sat back and blinked. Of all the things Blaise could’ve said, that was probably something she expected the least. “Mail order brides, that’s still a thing?”
“Oh yes, it’s a booming business on the Internet. Apparently Russian men don’t treat their women that great, so plenty of the female population are willing to take their chances on old, fat guys from America. So now we have two names and we are trying to deal with the Russian police, but that’s almost impossible. We are also subpoenaing the websites to find out who paid for these two brides. Of course the guy could’ve easily used a fake name and fake credit card, so that may not help us much.”
Blaise flipped a page in his notebook. “Second, the older man and woman we found under the basement of Frank Phillips house are indeed his aunt and uncle.”
Katerina looked around the room. No one seemed surprised at that news.
“We haven’t figured out who the other man is yet but I have a feeling he’s the key. It doesn’t make any sense that the dead guy would be Dylan Phillips and some person completely unrelated to Frank Phillips would be willing to kill people for him. So if Dylan Phillips is out in Westwood Harbor killing people, but no one has seen him around for twenty years, my guess is he took someone else’s identity. And if we figure out who the guy is, we’ll know whose identity he took. I’m just not sure how he did it. Cosmetic surgery maybe.”
“Testosterone shots,” Katerina said softly.
West and Blaise’s heads both whipped towards her in unison. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so exhausted and appalled. “It is Dylan Phillips. Frank confirmed it. And he sent me a picture. He was trying to show me his brother, I know he was. But something happened to his brain and his memory. Something I caused. He’s different now, and he only sees his brother the way his brother was in the past. So that’s what I saw. The picture he sent me, it was of a soft looking young man, quite effeminate. This could have easily been after Dylan’s castration surgery. So after the surgery, while he was still a fairly young man, his appearance probably changed quite a bit. But then what if he went away - disappeared for a while? If he started taking testosterone shots, his appearance would have changed again, probably drastically. He could’ve leaned out, gotten stronger, his face would become more angular, his jaw line sharper. He might even have lost his hair.”
West was nodding slightly, like it made sense to him, but Blaise was shaking his head. “The picture Frank sent you? You’re calling him Frank now? And he’s sending you pictures?”
“We snuck into the hospital tonight. I touched him. He’s changed Blaise. Something happened to him. I don’t think he’s a killer anymore.”
Blaise looked skeptical and the room was silent for several moments, everyone lost in their own thoughts. Katerina felt a surging of irritation at Blaise and tried to hold it at bay. She bit the inside of her lip and turned the anger on herself. She’d felt like she’d been more under control lately, since the news from Agnes, but apparently not.
Blaise broke the silence. “That would make sense I guess, and God knows it would make a ton of sense for Dylan Phillips to be the other killer, after what his father did to him.”
“What did his father do?” West asked.
Blaise grimaced. The lines in his face deepened and Katerina noticed dark circles under his eyes. “I went into the old records building and pulled all the files until I found the report of what happened the day that Dylan and Frank were removed from their home. It’s really awful, are you sure you want to hear it?”
West looked at Katerina. “I think we have to.” She nodded and looked at Blaise to continue.
“Dylan was helping his father, Charles, with an electrical project in the garage. Dylan wasn’t fast enough, or didn’t do something that his father wanted him to, and his father got angry. He cut the end off of an extension cord, plugged it in, and then electrocuted his son multiple times, all over his body.”
Katerina winced, and unknown tears fell from her eyes. At the kitchen table, Jordan put her head down on her arms. West moved behind Katerina and put his hands on her shoulders. She was so
glad for his touch.
“Charles thought he killed his boy, So he went out in the yard to dig a hole. His plan was to bury him, and tell people he ran off. Frank had been helping a neighbor pick blueberries to make some pocket cash, and when he came home and found his brother lying unconscious, maybe dead on the garage floor, he ran back to the neighbors house and screamed for help. The neighbor called an ambulance and the police, and they found Charles, his hole done, dragging Dylan across the yard. Charles was sentenced to only six years in prison, and he was released after only four.
“This is when Dylan was twelve?” West asked, his jaw tight, his fists clenched.
Blaise nodded.
“Jesus Christ,” West breathed.
Katerina closed her eyes and mourned for a man who had no childhood. For a man who’d gone through hell and now was repaying on innocent people.
Chapter 16
Blaise cleared his throat. “So tell me about your night? How did you get past the guards?”
Katerina, glad for the change of subject, answered. “It was all thanks to Jordan. She was awesome. We told her to wear something sexy and then we had her lure away the security guard.”
Jordan shivered and made a face. “He was so creepy though, I think he knew it was a sham from the beginning, because as soon as we got in the elevator he came on to me. He tried to kiss me and feel me up.”
Blaise snorted. “What, rent-a-cops aren’t good enough for you? Just cops?” he said quickly, a challenging tone in his voice.
Katerina’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Blaise. She played over in her mind what he had just said, then snapped her mouth closed and ground her teeth. About to order Blaise out of her apartment, she looked at Jordan first. Jordan’s cheeks were hotly colored, and her eyes were wide. “Excuse me?”
Blaise had the good sense to look down at the floor, but shrugged half a shoulder like it wasn’t a big deal.
Katerina felt heat rush through her body and her muscles tense. Blaise was West’s best friend, but that didn’t give him a right to treat anybody like that. She was about to stand up, but Jordan beat her to it. She shot to her feet and unloaded on him.
“You apparently think I’m some sort of … some sort of cop slut, or a piece of dirt you brought in off of your shoe, but let me tell you something Officer Cornwall, I’m a better woman than you’ll ever deserve, and probably than you’ll ever get if you think it’s okay to talk to people like that.” She turned to Katerina. “It’s been lovely, Kat, I’ll come hang out with you tomorrow if he’s not here.”
She walked stiffly to the door before Katerina could respond, then turned back, and with one last haughty look at Blaise, said, “I’m not surprised at all that you got kicked off the case. You’re a class A jerk.”
She pulled the door open and stomped out into the night. Katerina tried to follow, but West strode that way quickly. She saw him throw a confused look at Blaise and then he rushed to the door. “I’ll get her.”
Katerina followed West. She didn’t want to be alone with Blaise right now. She didn’t trust herself. At least one thing was clear to her though, she only wanted to kill him.
“Ah jeez,” she heard Blaise say behind her. “I don’t know what the hell I said that for Katerina, I’ll apologize to her.”
Blaise caught up with her at the door and walked out with her, but West was already bounding up the stairs. “She wouldn’t stay. I tried.”
They all watched Jordan’s small car pull out of the parking lot. When it turned on the street beyond, Katerina went back in her apartment and the men followed her.
Blaise started apologizing immediately. “That was fucking stupid of me. I am so sorry, Katerina. I didn’t mean to offend your friend. That was a really jerk thing for me to say. I don’t have any excuses, but I’m just… I’m going through a lot right now.”
“Yeah, aren’t we all,” Katerina muttered. She whipped out her phone. “Say it all again, exactly like you just said it.”
Blaise eyed her warily as she clicked on the camera and started recording him. “Better do it, man,” West muttered.
Blaise sighed and apologized directly to Jordan as Katerina recorded it. Satisfied, she sent it to Jordan’s phone. West clapped Blaise on the back, apparently thinking a simple apology could fix anything. Katerina wanted to eviscerate them both. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her sudden fury.
“Hey West, I actually could use your help with something. Do you have a line on the governor? Would you be able to call him or someone close to him for me?” Blaise said.
West thought carefully. “I don’t think so, but I could call my brother and my dad, maybe they do. What’s up?”
Blaise colored slightly under his dark skin and looked at the floor again. “I just found out my mother is about to be deported, and if she goes back to Honduras, she’ll be thrown in jail.”
“What? Why?”
For no reason at all, black anger shot through Katerina again and she sank into the chair, shaking. So much for getting a handle on her emotions. She felt like tearing at her hair and face. Her fingers twitched as she resisted.
Blaise sighed. “I’ve never really told you much about my family, have I?”
West shook his head, his eyes concerned.
“You sure you want to hear this now? It’s late.”
“How soon is your mother supposed to be deported?”
“They aren’t saying for sure, but it could happen in a couple of days.”
From the corner of her eye, Katerina saw West glance at her. She waved a trembling hand at him. Let him interpret it how he wanted.
“You better tell us now then,” West told Blaise.
“Well here’s the whole fucked-up story in a nutshell. My mom is from Honduras. My father is American.” Blaise’s voice filled with venom when he said the word father. “He traveled to Honduras with the Peace Corps thirty-one years ago and met my mother – they fell in love and got pregnant with me pretty quickly – but what my mother didn’t know was my father was a criminal. He was a small time drug dealer, using the Peace Corps as cover. Or maybe he became a drug dealer once he got down there. Regardless, he attracted the attention of the police and was detained. There was talk of putting him in jail for as long as twenty years and my mother panicked. She was pregnant and scared, and she didn’t want the father of her child to spend twenty years in jail. She went to the investigators and told them she was responsible for the worst of his crimes. They were confused and arrested her, and let my father go. In Honduras, it is common for criminals to wait in jail before they get a fair trial, but because my mother was pregnant they let her go with a promise that she stay in the city. My father packed her up and brought her here to America saying he would marry her and make her a citizen. I was born a few weeks later and for about six months they lived as a happy family. But then my father abandoned her and disappeared - they never got married. She never pursued her citizenship because she was always scared that if she tried she would be deported and prosecuted for my father’s crimes. I never even knew she wasn’t a citizen until a few hours ago. She kept texting me at the last crime scene, begging me to help her. She worked as a hotel maid in the same hotel for the last twenty-eight years with a fake social security number the hotel set her up with. She paid taxes on it and everything. Last week though, someone called in an anonymous tip to the State Department that she is not a citizen and is a wanted criminal in Honduras. She’s done nothing but work her butt off my entire life, and now she’s old. It would kill her to be sent back to Honduras, away from me and her friends here. I have to find a way to fix this for her.”
Blaise’s voice cracked on the last couple of words and his face held a pinched look of desperation.
West started to say something but it was drowned out by Katerina’s laughter. She didn’t want to laugh. In fact, she knew her response was just as inappropriate as Blaise’s had been to Jordan earlier, but she couldn’t help it. The laughter bubbled up
from deep inside her and spilled over without her consent. She knew that if she didn’t say something quickly, Blaise would consider it payback for what he had said to Jordan. Some small part of her knew she didn’t want to alienate Blaise, or by extension West, so she quickly started talking, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Blaise, but you’re an idiot. Jordan could’ve helped you. Jordan teaches a Becoming an American Citizen class once a week. She’s on the Enforcement and Removal committee of the state, and she knows the people who will fast-track citizenship if it’s needed. She probably could have fixed this for you with one phone call.”
Blaise dropped his head into his hands. A strangled “Oh God,” came from behind his palms. “I don’t know why I said that to her. I am an idiot. I don’t even know what my fucking problem is with her. I mean, she’s sweet and very pretty and … shit - I guess I just had her stereotyped in my mind.”
Katerina bit her lip. She felt like Blaise was almost on the verge of crying and she felt sorry for him suddenly, her earlier anger washed away. “Maybe she’ll still help you. She’s not really one to hold a grudge.”
Blaise looked at Katerina hopefully. “I wouldn’t even ask if it were just for me. I don’t deserve any help. But my mother does. She deserves everything.”
“I’ll text her.”
West sat on the couch next to Blaise and reassured him quietly. Katerina retreated into the kitchen and sent Jordan a few text messages. She didn’t respond. Katerina remembered how she was worried about Jordan earlier and suddenly that worry rushed back, with teeth. She called Jordan but got no answer. She left a message. “Jordan, call me back, no matter how late it is. I need to make sure you got home okay.”
When she got back in the living room, Blaise was standing and shaking West’s hand. Blaise turned to her. “Katerina, I’m leaving. I’ve got to get some sleep. Thanks for everything and call me right away if Jordan says she’ll help me. I’ll beg if she wants me to. I’ll pay her. I’ll do anything …” His voice trailed off and his face dropped into desperation again.
