The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

  “That’s supposed to cheer me up?”

  “You gotta stay there a few days this time, okay? I’ll handcuff you to your bed, hear me, sistah?”

  Cal sniffed at Meat and closed her eyes. “Don’t make me call your mother, Malcolm.”

  “Oh, that’s low.”

  “Rostislav, you better get out of here,” Cal said.

  “Why?”

  “With your connections, it would be better if someone semi-official like the M&Ms dealt with the police.” She could hear sirens approaching, and people were starting to come out of their apartments to see what was going on.

  “Why you say this? My record is clean.”

  That surprised Cal mildly, but she persisted. “What would Sergei tell you? Don’t get involved with the cops, right? No good can come of it.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded sharply. “Okay. But if you die on way, I kill him.” He jabbed a sausage-finger at Meat.

  “Fair enough.”

  Rostislav left and Cal closed her eyes, listening to the sirens getting closer. This whole thing had gone badly sideways, and it was her own fault. Injuries, drugs, alcohol and emotion had brought her to the brink of failure, even death. She expected a scolding visit from her father any second now.

  She hoped he wouldn’t try to escort her into the afterlife.

  But then, she reached her hand down to her solar plexus and felt for the recorder taped there, beneath her blouse, and she smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Once Cal was on the paramedics’ gurney, with an IV in her arm and dressings on her wounds, Manson made his shamefaced report, with Meat standing behind him trying to look unconcerned and failing.

  “Sorry, Cal. I should have caught her, but she came down so fast. I was watching the back door to the building, not expecting her to come down the balconies, and with my ankle…” He raised a pant leg to show the ace bandage.

  “I know,” Cal sighed. “No worries.”

  “We did a quick search of her place, though. Guess what we found in the closet?”

  Cal ran through possibilities in her mind. “Jenna’s chainmail?”

  “Bingo, with holes and blood. Hanging on two steel hooks like a trophy. And her cross.”

  “Don’t touch it. Call Macey and tip her off.”

  “She don’t deserve this.”

  Cal winced as she shifted on the gurney. “I know, but it’s her case. I have to be the bigger person here. And she’ll owe me.”

  Manson chortled. “She gonna hate that.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “We need to load her in the ambulance now,” the lead EMT said to the two big men.

  “Go ahead,” Meat said, and then called to Cal as they slid her into the back of the vehicle. “We’ll handle the police report,” Meat said, jerking his head at the uniform getting out of the unit that just pulled up. That was all she heard before the doors shut.

  The next thing she remembered was a montage of being wheeled into the ER and a doctor assessing her stab wound. “You’re lucky,” the cute young intern said to her as he got ready to stitch. “Missed everything vital, bleeding is under control…very lucky.”

  “That’s me. Lucky,” Cal said, fading out.

  Waking took some time. They must have given her more painkillers, but at a certain point, the rush of fear and memory set her heart to pounding. She checked her watch. Two hours had passed. “Shit.” She reached for her phone, which had been set on the table beside her, and speed-dialed Allsop. As she did, she noticed the recorder and wire mike also on the side table. Thank God, at least that was there.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Cal. Meat briefed you?”

  “He did. You put yourself in the hospital again.”

  “Why Jay, I didn’t know you cared.”

  Unexpected silence greeted her jab. When he finally spoke, he actually sounded hurt. “Whatever, Cal.”

  “Sorry, Jay. I know you care.”

  “Yeah, okay. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “So you got a BOLO on Brook?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Listen, your guys tried to make it sound legit, but this girl’s got no warrants, no priors, and we got no probable cause. Far as I can tell, you and your boys threatened her, she defended herself and ran, like any good citizen.”

  “Then why hasn’t she contacted the police to report us?”

  “I know that, you know that, but we gotta go by the law, and this whole thing is extralegal. Give me something I can use, Cal. Something admissible, something within the bounds of our legal mandate.”

  Cal reached for the recorder. “I can’t do that yet, but I can give you this.” She played the recording close to the phone, isolating the part where Brook admitted to crimes.

  “That’s convincing, but it’s still completely tainted and inadmissible.”

  “I just went there to talk to her. She let me in of her own free will.” But…Cal waited for it.

  “But you can’t record people in their own homes without their permission like you can in public. They have an expectation of privacy. You should have gotten her to meet you in a park or something.”

  “I tried, Jay, and I know this can’t be used in court, but it might convince a friendly judge.”

  Allsop sighed. “Cal, I’m not sticking my neck out for you on this one. You’re too far out on a limb. When Macey hears about this, she’ll go through the roof and probably complain to the captain. Nobody but me and Brody’s gonna talk to you anymore, Cal. Better be prepared for that.”

  “Oh, that’s something new?”

  “You just burned whatever little capital you had, Cal. Best to lay low for a while, let people forget, let us handle this. I’ll put out a person-of-interest BOLO but it’ll be low level. Every cop in the city gets dozens of those a day.”

  “I’ll have Mickey pull a picture of her off the internet, hopefully something sexy. That might make her more memorable.”

  “Might. Anything else?”

  Cal scoffed and tried to send her eyeroll through the phone. “Anything else more than I just told you who Jenna Duncan’s murderer is, and also the Potoczek murder? All you guys have to do is do the legwork.”

  “The legwork’s usually the hardest part.”

  “Jay, you’re old-school. I spent three years learning from you. Whip out some of that old-school here and make it happen. By any means necessary. This chick is bad news, Jay. She killed Jenna and Potoczek, and tried to kill me with her own hands—and now she’s at large. The next one she kills? That’s on you, Jay.”

  The hiss of Allsop’s drag on his cigarette came through clearly, and then, “Now who’s going old-school?”

  “I learned from the best. Get it done.”

  “Damn you, Cal. You know I will.”

  “I know you will. Later.”

  Jay hung up without replying. Cal slowly closed the phone and thought for a moment. Then she gingerly tried to sit up. Her side felt like someone was trying to tear it open, even with whatever painkillers they were giving her in the IV. She remembered the doctor telling her it had missed vital organs, but no doubt it had cut muscle.

  While she rested in a sitting position, she called Mickey with an update and told him to dig up the hottest picture of Brook he could, something that would get every red-blooded American male cop’s pulse pounding and make the women hate her. That would ensure she would stick in their minds as they drove their patrols or walked their beats. He’d also keep a lookout for anything on the web—credit card usage, news reports, anything like that.

  When she was done with her instructions, Mickey said, “Hey, boss, I got something else for you. It’s pretty thin, but it might explain a couple things bugging me.”

  “What’s bugging you?”

  “Why did Roubicek take the fall for Brook? What hold does she have over him? And also, Brook Dancer? I mean, yeah, there are a few people with the surname of Danc
er, but it sure doesn’t seem like a real name, y’know?”

  “Okay, so?”

  “So I found court records from Cupertino on line.”

  “Silicon Valley.”

  “Makes sense, huh? Anyway, I found a document with an image search, not text. Pretty tricky. You should be proud of me, Cal. I had to write a macro that recognizes words inside pictures, which is—”

  “Squirrel! Back to Brook and Randy. Document?”

  “Sorry. Anyway, it’s a 1996 cover document of the sealed juvenile offender records of River Tancerz, daughter of Glenda Tancerz, a Polish immigrant who died of cancer in 1998. Glenda married a Polish-American named Reginald Roubicek a couple years before she died, and Roubicek had a son—”

  “—named Randolph.”

  “Ay-firmative.” Mickey stopped, as if savoring the moment waiting for Cal to figure something out. “River Tancerz.”

  “So…River Tancerz…River Dancer…ugh. Really? Brook. Dancer. She changed her name. And it turns out she’s Polish, huh? Polish enough to be a natural partner with Pete? And white enough to get along with the Aryan Brotherhood.”

  “Probably. Blood will out.” He paused again.

  And she’s Randy’s—”

  “Sister.”

  “You mean stepsister, don’t you?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, except I found evidence Roubicek and Tancerz were low-level drug offenders—meth heads—who cohabitated for years. In 1978, Glenda Tancerz had River and gave her the Tancerz name. Four years later she was in Chowchilla doing eighteen months for possession and had a baby boy. I couldn’t find his name, but I’d bet a dozen donuts it was Randy Roubicek, with custody assigned to the biological father, Reginald, who impregnated her on a conjugal visit.”

  Cal digested this, thinking over Randy’s words. He’d never actually said he and Brook were lovers; he’d simply allowed Cal to think so, for now-obvious reasons. Brook had also denied it, truthfully as it turned out. It made the jealousy and the hold Brook had over Randy more believable, too. Siblings. Once a little bother, always a little brother.

  “Great job, Mickey, really. I’m proud of you.”

  Cal could imagine him swell and glow with the praise. Poor kid. With a nagging, unpleasant mother, he was starved for female approval. “Thanks, Cal. I try hard.”

  “I know you do, and you’ve earned a bonus. Anything else?”

  “I’ll let you know. Get some rest, Cal.” He hung up.

  “Cal?” came a voice from the doorway.

  “Manson?”

  The big man limped into the hospital room. “Meat’s out working the streets for that bitch, but you know how these things go. We gotta get lucky.”

  “Then we put ourselves in a position to get lucky, just like in poker. Tell him to spread some cash. I’ll cover it.”

  “That’ll help.”

  She stared at Manson. “Sorry I got you into this.”

  Manson grinned. “You kidding, right? I ain’t had this much fun in weeks. We love working for you, Cal, ’cause you always in deep shit.”

  “And you get paid.”

  “Yeah, we do. You straight up, girl. That’s why we straight with you.”

  “Thanks, Manson.” She swung her legs off the bed and stood gingerly, testing her ability to walk. She could manage. “Now help me get the hell out of here.”

  “Cal—”

  “No arguments, Manson. I’m paying you, I’m the boss, and if you ain’t got my back, I’ll call Rostislav.” There. Nothing like a little masculine rivalry to bring him along.

  “Aw, hell no, Cal. I got your back. If you’re sure…”

  She slid the IV needle out of her vein with an intake of breath and stripped off the monitor leads. “You tell the nurses I’m leaving while I get dressed. Shut the door, will you.”

  It took her twice as long as she expected to dress, even without her weapons, while she listened to Manson argue with the staff. Meat had taken her guns when the paramedics objected to her being armed in their ambulance. It made her feel naked. Then she realized she still had a tiny derringer in her jeans pocket, easy to miss. Better.

  She tottered to the nurse’s station and insisted on signing herself out. She knew her rights and knew they had no cause to hold her there. Manson escorted her down to the parking lot and her deep-blue Subaru.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Manson asked, looking dubiously at Molly. “I can drive you. Kind of a squeeze, but…”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I ain’t leaving you, though. Meat tol’ me he’ll beat me like an LA cop at a Rodney King film festival if I let you outta my sight.”

  Cal was about to object, and then reminded herself she was paying for muscle. She might as well use it, especially in her injured state. “Okay, get in. I need to see Sergei.”

  Sergei would be relieved to hear she’d figured out who was responsible for killing Jenna. He was not going to be happy to hear Brook escaped, but with any luck, they’d be able to track her down. That was what she did, after all. The bounty hunting part. That was, assuming the justice system got around to issuing a warrant or charging her with something.

  “You should go home and let the police deal with this,” her father said. Cal rolled her eyes, and kept driving. “You can phone Sergei.”

  Interesting. Her father’d never manifested before with a passenger in the car. She wondered what she’d see if she looked at the passenger seat, where Manson sat.

  Normally she spoke out loud, but this time she tried merely thinking her words. No need to freak Manson out. “Sergei’s the client, and he’s family. He has the right to hear what happened from me in person.”

  “You need rest. You tear those stitches open and you could bleed out.”

  “After I talk to Sergei,” Cal mind-said stubbornly. She’d told Sergei she would let him know. She didn’t want him finding things out on the evening news, or the internet.

  “It won’t go like you expect.”

  “What?” Cal tried to sort out how she could consciously expect one outcome while at the same time subconsciously believing that she was wrong. A shrink would’ve had a field day with her addled brain.

  “What what?” Manson asked.

  Hmm. She must have spoken aloud. Cal glanced at the passenger seat and saw only Manson.

  Sergei’s eyes were bloodshot as he let her in. “You are supposed to be resting,” he reminded her.

  “You look like you could use some rest too, Dyadya.”

  “I am an old man. I will rest in my grave. Until then, I have no time.”

  More likely Starlight was wearing him out. Ew. “I figured it out,” Cal said.

  “Jenna?” He opened the door the rest of the way to admit her. “Come in, come in. Tell me about it.”

  “Open the garage. One set of cut brake lines was enough.” She tossed Manson the keys and walked gingerly inside the bar to sit and wait in a booth. When Sergei returned and sat across from her, Cal proceeded to explain, leaving out the details about Starlight drugging her, telling him about what she’d gotten out of Randy and her decision to go talk to Brook.

  “You did not call police?”

  “No. They wouldn’t have been able to do anything and would have told me to stay away. I told Rostislav, though, and as it turned out, Mickey called the M&Ms.” She hooked a thumb at Manson, sitting at the bar with a beer. “So I had backup.”

  She deliberately didn’t clarify that none of her muscular bodyguards had actually been with her until later, nor did she mention the mayhem that ensued. No doubt Rostislav would tell Sergei the details, but later was better than sooner.

  Cal laid the recorder on the table between them and clicked play.

  Sergei stared at the device throughout the playback. His face turned pale and set. Cal winced at the moment she’d been stabbed. She reached over to stop it, but Sergei picked up the recorder to prevent her. He listened to the end. “She stabbed you?”

  “Well…y
es. Below the vest. I’m fine.”

  “This suka must be stopped.”

  “I wish. I played it for Jay Allsop over the phone, and he’ll do what he can, but it’s inadmissible. I’ll have Mickey enhance it and send them the recording—”

  Sergei was playing with the buttons on the recorder, and Cal reached out, intending to take it away from him, though he closed his fist. “Be careful with that. It’s evidence, admissible or not. Without it, all they have is my word—”

  “Paka-paka.”

  “What?”

  “Bye-bye. This is all I need.” He ignored Cal’s outstretched hand and dropped the miniature recorder into a glass of water.

  “No!” Cal snatched the glass, dumped it out across the table, and pulled the recorder out of the puddle. “What are you doing? I need that!”

  “Let me see, I think it is not…” Sergei took it delicately from her hand and scrutinized it for damage. As Cal sat there gaping at him, he dropped it to the floor and crushed it underfoot.

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “I will take care of this Brook,” Sergei said.

  “The cops will find her, or I will. Let them handle it.”

  “I told you when you found out who it was, let me know. Now you have. I take care of it.”

  Cal summoned her most persuasive voice. “Uncle Sergei…”

  “No, Cal. Jenna was one of mine. No one does that to one of mine. And you, too, are one of mine. You are family, all family. Nobody touches family.”

  Brook had killed Jenna and tried to kill Cal. More than once. Cal’s mouth dried up at Sergei’s cold anger. Maybe he wasn’t actually part of the Russian mob, but no doubt he could call in a favor. “Dyadya, you can’t be a vigilante. You’ll be as bad as she is.”

  “Stupid American thinking, sometimes you have. Police are all rotten, more rotten than Bratva. Evidence is gone. This Brook, she is smart. Even if they find her, they cannot prove.”

  “Yeah, not without that recording you just destroyed!”