Deeper

by Ronica Black

  “It’s a satellite phone number.” Patricia’s heart jumped.

  “I think she knows where Jay is,” Erin said in a thin, sorrowful voice. “All this time she knew and she didn’t tell me. I thought she told me everything. Things she never told anyone else. So why didn’t she tell me about this?”

  “Come on,” Patricia said. “Let’s get you in a bed before you collapse.”

  Carefully and full of concern, Patricia led her down the hallway to the spare bedroom. She eased her down onto the bed and removed her shoes. Erin lay back against the pillows as Patricia covered her with a light blanket.

  “Get some rest.” Patricia said softly. “When you wake we’ll talk some more.”

  Jack jumped on the bed and snuggled down next to Erin. Patricia watched them for a moment before leaving the room. Deep in thought, she headed down the hallway to her office, staring at the phone number in her hand.

  Finally. A lead on Jay Adams.

  *

  Liz sat on the king-sized bed and flipped slowly through the magazine full of pictures from the Caribbean. Erin had dog-eared numerous pages, hoping that they would soon be able to escape and marry in the tropical paradise. Liz had eagerly made the promise, letting Erin choose where she wanted to go. Liz could still recall how Erin’s green eyes would sparkle with excitement when they talked about their plans. For a long while, it seemed to be all she could think about.

  Those dreams were gone now, discarded like the magazine Erin had left on the floor. Liz could read the message, that their love had been thrown away. She cursed herself. She should’ve married her back then, but she’d been self-centered, putting her businesses before their relationship. Erin hadn’t complained. Instead she’d stepped up to help.

  Because she loved me.

  Liz wiped away a stray tear as she glanced around the room. Drawers hung open and empty. Erin had taken her pillow, leaving the bed unbalanced. She was gone. Nothing had ever hurt so bad. Liz felt as empty as the room, a mere shell with nothing of value left on the inside.

  She rose and absently fingered her wrists. They were still sore from last night. The handcuffs had been too tight and left on too long before she’d been shoved into an overcrowded cell. But she hadn’t cared. She’d wanted to kill the large, rude cop who’d made a comment about Erin. He’d asked where she was, whether they had been fucking in the pool again. Then, upon seeing her face, he changed his verbal assault tactic.

  “Or maybe you’ve been fucking somebody else and she threatened to leave,” he gloated. “Maybe you killed her. Maybe you killed her like you did those men. Yeah, that’s it. She found out the truth and you had to kill her.”

  Liz had lunged at him then, wanting nothing more than to tear his fucking throat out. She knew how to. She’d been trained well over the years in mixed martial arts and she knew how to kill just as she knew how to protect herself. If another cop hadn’t held her back, she honestly didn’t know if she could have stopped herself.

  And now Erin was gone. Erin had left her. She thought about Patricia’s book. It hadn’t taken long for Tyson to confirm that Erin’s SUV was at the detective’s house. Maybe Erin was where she truly belonged.

  Liz looked into her closet and caught sight of the abandoned hangers. Her insides felt the same—ripped, torn, and left completely skeletal. That’s all she was now. Bones.

  She moved her clothes to open the safe. Antwon’s body had been found right next to her house. She shivered as she turned the dial. Her hand shook as she opened the paper to look at the photograph. Walking back into the room, she grabbed her satellite phone and dialed.

  *

  Flash.

  Patricia blinked against the white light as Gary Jacobs moved around the metal gurney, snapping photos of the body.

  Flash, flash.

  “Antwon De Maro. Twenty-eight-year-old male. Five foot ten. Hundred and fifty-seven pounds, African American descent.” She paused, examining his nude body. “In excellent physical shape. Well nourished, though on the thinner side. Pubic hair well trimmed. Head of the penis pierced once with small half-ring in place. Four stab wounds to the genital region, two flanking the penis and two on the testes. No other visible wounds. All bruises and abrasions appear to be on the neck.”

  Gary took close-ups of the throat.

  “Significant marks on the front and sides of neck. Cause of death has been determined as strangulation.” She stared at the purple reddish marks. One was higher up than the others, a demonic red grin on the upper neck. A ligature mark, made by something other than hands. The killer had strangled De Maro more than once.

  Gary moved the head from side to side with a gloved hand. “Just like Gillette,” he said. His face was serious and he was chewing on the inside of his bottom lip, his mind obviously working a mile a minute.

  Patricia clicked Pause on her recorder and breathed deeply, thankful for Gary’s cologne. “Maybe the repeat strangulation was out of choice rather than need. Maybe he purposely tortured them.” She imagined the scenario in her head. “He strangled them again and again. First with a cord or rope here,” she said, pointing to the thinner, higher mark. “Then he used his hands. Or maybe vice versa. But my gut tells me he probably preferred to finish them manually.”

  Gary lifted the young man’s hands. “He didn’t try to fight back.” The fingers were free of bruising or abrasions, the nails clean and intact, just as Gillette’s had been.

  “He was probably drugged.” She studied the body closely, looking over every last inch of skin. He’d already been combed for trace evidence and everything had gone to the lab along with his clothes. They were waiting for the results.

  “He must have been nearly unconscious not to fight back while being strangled.”

  “What did Gillette have in his system? Ecstasy?” She knew but she needed him to answer. They often thought aloud.

  “Yes. Not enough to cause unconsciousness.”

  “So if De Maro’s drugged, and let’s assume he was, our killer gets him a little relaxed with the ecstasy and then strangles him. For whatever reason our victims don’t try and fight back. There’s no indication that their hands were bound. Then, out of rage or in some sort of sick copycat fashion, our killer stabs his genital region after he’s dead.”

  She brought the recorder to her mouth. “But why? Why didn’t the victims fight back? Was this erotic asphyxiation? If so, why the stabbing of the genitals?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” the coroner, Dr. Nat Burroughs, said, strolling into the room. Patricia hadn’t known Nat for very long, but she knew his sense of humor was as wicked as his mind was sharp. He was a tall, thin man with dark brown skin and an infectious smile, bald on top with thick and curly hair on the sides and numerous gray sprouts. His shoes were covered like a surgeon’s and made a shuffling noise as he moved to stand next to the body. He’d obviously stripped out of his scrubs to come talk to them.

  Patricia could smell the hand soap he favored, a powerful ginseng that she’d often asked about because she liked the scent. She relaxed with his arrival, glad that they would soon be finished. She hated this place, and never got used to the finality it represented. They were in the icebox, the large back room full of metal drawers where the bodies were kept cool. Filing cabinets for the dead. There was no cutting here, no sawing, no poking or draining. The bodies that were here had already been through all of that. De Maro was no exception—the large “Y” stitched on his chest and abdomen made him look like a human baseball, roughly sewn together.

  Nat stood hunched over the gurney, one arm across his chest while his other hand stroked his five o’clock shadow. He shook his head. “Poor boy.”

  “Got anything good, Nat?” Gary asked.

  Their routine was simple. She and Gary would look over and photograph the body, then depending on whether he had the time, Nat would either walk in and verbally give them his report or they would have to settle for the typed version. The coroner before Nat had ne
ver offered his time, preferring to work almost solely with his silent patients, leaving dealing with the living to other staff. Patricia was thankful that somebody more social and willing to help had come along. And today, they were lucky. Nat had the time.

  She turned on her recorder as Nat recited his observations, no chart needed. He sank his hands into the deep pockets of his worn lab coat. The lab coat, along with soft corduroy pants, was what he always wore when he met them in the icebox.

  “Well, let’s see, you know the basics, right?”

  Patricia nodded. “He was strangled, possibly drugged beforehand because of the lack of defensive wounds. Dumped in the desert very soon after death.”

  “Right, right,” Nat said as he began to move.

  Gary backed up, allowing the doctor to circle the body, just as he always did when he gave a report, as if he were winding himself up.

  “The body was very clean, despite having sustained stab wounds. He most likely bled little because the wounds were made postmortem, but still, there was very little blood on him. A few small stains on his underwear, that sort of thing.” He met Patricia’s eyes but continued to move. “He was sexually active, within twenty-four hours of the time of death.”

  “Any semen?” DNA heaven. She held her breath.

  “No, none. There were, as with Gillette, some abrasions in and around the rectum.”

  She nodded. The information was helpful, but she had already confirmed that both men had led very active sex lives.

  “There is one thing I think you’ll find interesting and it’s why I called.” He moved to the long stainless steel countertop against the side wall, where he snapped on some gloves. Crossing back to the body, he said, “Do you remember the small crucifix on Gillette?”

  “The tattoo?” Gillette had several.

  Nat grunted softly as he lifted De Maro up a ways to show his back. “We found a small crucifix on Gillette’s back, which we assumed was a tattoo. But when we washed the body after the autopsy, the ink faded. It was drawn on. My secretary called your precinct to let you know. I wasn’t sure if it was something significant or not.”

  Gary nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Now it seems as if it is.”

  “Come have a look,” Nat said, still holding up the body.

  Patricia quickly rolled an examination lamp over and switched it on. A crucifix was inked on the skin of his lower back. The ink was faded as if it had been washed.

  “Sweet holy mother of God.” Gary bent down to take a photo.

  Nat let out a boisterous laugh. “That’s a good way of putting it.” He touched the cross with his finger. “It’s definitely drawn on.”

  “There’s absolutely no question now,” Patricia said. “We got another serial.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The diner was small and overcrowded, the strong scent of coffee and the sound of clanking silverware filling the room. Erin tapped her fingers on the table after pushing away the plastic menu offering just four choices: Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Pie. Nervous, she gazed out the window and watched a light breeze blow the trees against a gray, smoggy backdrop of a sky. The scene fit her mood. She was nothing but a lone tree, blowing whichever way the wind demanded.

  The past few days had been a surreal hell spent tossing and turning in a bedroom she’d never expected to be in again. Asking herself questions she knew she’d most likely never find answers to. Dying inside. Dealing with the rejection. Dealing with the fact that she might never have really known Liz. Jealousy clawed at her soul, tearing her open each and every second of the night. All of it was too much.

  It was pain she never could’ve imagined.

  “Holy shit,” a voice said, the body quickly following, sliding into the booth across from her. “It’s my old friend Mac.”

  Erin grinned at her longtime friend J.R. Stanford and squeezed his hands as he greeted her.

  “How you been, sister girl?”

  She laughed, loving how no matter what, J.R. could put a smile on her face. He motioned for the waitress and ordered a slice of apple pie. “And make it big,” he instructed, “I’m a growing boy. And,” he said, gently grabbing the waitress as she was leaving, “coffee. Black.” He looked to Erin. “You order yet?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He grimaced, hand still on the waitress. “And the same for my friend here.”

  The waitress nodded and walked away. J.R. patted Erin’s hand affectionately while slinging his other arm over the back of the booth. His shirt was trademark loud, wild-looking tropical trees growing in all directions. His eyes were lively and kind, and his mouth was already clearing a path for his mind.

  “So, qué pasa?” he asked in his Spanish lisp. “How long has it been? Like a year or something?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “How you been?”

  She forced a smile. “I’ve been okay.” She paused, hoping she sounded believable. “You?”

  “Ah, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that. I think what they did to you was shit, by the way. So you fucked a suspect?” He shrugged. “She was hot. You’re hot.” He lifted his eyebrows. “That tape was hot. And she ended up being innocent.”

  Erin closed her eyes, torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry.

  J.R. continued, unperturbed. “You were a good cop, the best undercover I’ve ever worked with.” He scoffed. “Stupid motherfuckers.”

  Erin cleared her throat, trying to rid herself of the emotion his words brought on. “I did wrong. They were right to fire me.”

  “Whatever. They shoulda done their job better.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Erin felt her body threaten to tremble. She hoped he didn’t notice.

  “So I heard you and Adams are engaged or some shit like that.” He looked to her hands on the table, knuckles white from their grip on one another. He frowned and she assumed he was looking for a ring.

  “Actually…” She took in a breath. She had to tell him. She was about to spill over with pain and sorrow. “We’re separated.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Separated?”

  “I left her.”

  “Fuck.” He leaned back in surprise. He seemed to think heavily for a moment. “Why?”

  She let out a long breath. Her chest shook. “It’s a long story.”

  “I got all day. Fuck the job.”

  “Thank you. But that’s not why I’m here.” She held his eyes. “I need your help.”

  A large pot of coffee came between them, their mugs were turned upright and filled. When they were alone again she continued.

  “I was hoping you would help me. It’s about the new murders. Gillette and De Maro.”

  “The ones Henderson has?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know, Mac. I’m not anywhere near those cases. They’re big deals. With those and the Highway Murders, people are talking FBI involvement. Ruiz and the whole department are walking around like hot pokers are up their asses.”

  “I know. And I don’t want you to do anything that could cause you trouble. But I was wondering if you could put your ear to the ground, so to speak.”

  He slurped his coffee. “How so?”

  “De Maro and Gillette were gay, big on the club scene.”

  “I see.”

  “I was hoping you could ask around, find out who they were dating or hanging out with.”

  He slurped some more and winked at the waitress when she delivered their pie. He cut into it with his fork and shoveled a big mouthful. “Tell me why.”

  “Because everyone thinks Liz has something to do with it. The victims both worked for her. I knew these guys, J.R.”

  “What about you? You think she has something to do with it?”

  “No. But I’m afraid she knows more than she should.”

  “You left her, though, so why do you give a shit?”

  She looked off again at the blowing trees. “Because I love her.” Despite it all, that was the painful truth. That was w
hy it hurt so damned bad.

  He chewed absently. “You really do love her, don’t you? Sacrificing your job, leaving behind the life you had, all that for this woman.”

  “I do, J.R.”

  “But you left her.”

  Erin wrapped her hands around the hot coffee mug, needing to feel the sting. “She’s troubled and she’s not herself. She pushed me away and kept something from me and…no matter what, I just want her to be happy. Even if it’s without me.”

  “Wow. That’s some classic dyke melodrama shit right there.” He pointed his fork at her. “But she did something else too, for you to leave her. She cheated on you, didn’t she?”

  Erin lowered her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

  “Uh-huh. I knew it. I knew when we went under after her. She’s a player.” He spelled it aloud for her. “P-L-A-Y-A.” He shook his head. “Mentirosa.”

  Erin sighed. “She’s just not being herself. The secrecy, her behavior…”

  “Mac, you ever think that’s who she really is? That you’re finally seeing the real Elizabeth Adams?”

  “I don’t know anymore. But I know I saw a part of her no one else has. A good part. A loving part.”

  “But again, you left her.”

  “Yes, I did. I don’t think she wants me anymore. But still I…I want to help her.” She knew Liz didn’t want her. That much was obvious. But the reasons tore at her. What had she done? What hadn’t she done?

  “So you want me to sniff around a bit about these dead twinks.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind. Did you know them?”

  “Nah, saw the one, De Maro, around a few times. But we never spoke.”

  They sat in silence for a moment as more orders were called out and waitresses scurried about delivering them. J.R. lowered his mug. “So, are you okay? You have a place to stay?”

  Erin finally took a slow sip of the coffee. It flooded her mouth with warm comfort. “I’m staying with Patricia.”

  J.R. grinned from ear to ear. “No kidding?”