Every Deadly Kiss

by Steven James

“What’s your name?” Sharyn asked.

  “Chip. But you’re gonna want to talk to Tony.” He leaned back and called over his shoulder, “Hey, Ton?”

  When no one replied, Chip said, “’Scuse me a sec. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared through the hanging bead doorway behind him, but his hurried footsteps told Sharyn that he was hightailing it down the hall and wasn’t trying to locate Tony—if Tony even existed.

  She called for Schwartz to cover the front in case the guy doubled back, then she threw the beads aside and sprinted down the hallway, passing two empty rooms on the way.

  Out the back door.

  Chip disappeared around the corner of the building toward a chain-link fence encircling a thistle-filled field nearby.

  Sharyn dashed after him. “Stop!”

  He must have spent a lot more time behind his computer desk than on a treadmill, because she gained on him quickly and, while he was trying unsuccessfully to scramble over the relatively tame six-foot-high fence, she caught up with him.

  Schwartz angled around the building about forty yards away.

  Sharyn pulled Chip down from the fence and he collapsed out of breath onto the grass, cowering behind one hand as he begged Sharyn not to shoot him.

  By then, Schwartz had his gun out. “Hands to the side!” he ordered. “Now!”

  Sharyn patted Chip down and then told Schwartz to lower his weapon.

  At this point, cuffing Chip was a judgment call, so she said, “I like to speak to people without distraction and without them running off in the middle of the conversation. Do I need to handcuff you?”

  Chip shook his head urgently. “No, no, no. I won’t run.”

  “If you do, we’ll have to arrest you,” Detective Schwartz said. “Understand?”

  He nodded, still clearly rattled. “I didn’t do anything,”

  “Then why’d you run?” Sharyn asked.

  “I don’t know. I was scared.”

  “Don’t you know it’s not smart to run from an FBI agent or a cop?” she said. “We might be led to think that you have something to hide.”

  “Do you have something to hide?” Schwartz pressed him.

  “Me? No.”

  “Your team developed the Hook’dup app. We want to know about it.”

  “If you mean by ‘my team,’ ‘me,’ then yes.”

  “You’re the team?”

  “I’m the only employee.”

  “Okay,” Sharyn said. “Tell us about the app.”

  “It’s completely legal. Seriously. I researched everything. It’s not breaking any laws.”

  “Talk us through it.”

  “It’s super simple. You click in, set up an account, list your preferences. Only takes a couple minutes.”

  “Preferences?” Schwartz asked.

  “Yeah, like male/female/she-male.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that is,” he muttered disgustedly.

  “What is this about, anyway?” Chip said. “I know it’s all legal. Tons of people are developing dating apps.”

  “Yes, but not ones that encourage people to trespass.”

  “It’s just an app to help people meet. What they do after that is up to them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The app notifies them if a location is open for use or not and if there are likely any cops in the area.”

  Sharyn eyed him curiously. “How do you know when officers might be patrolling the neighborhood?”

  “Police dispatch. It’s public domain information. I analyzed the calls from the last two years, came up with an algorithm for identifying the most likely sites for different patrols on different days to work out a rudimentary work routine for different precincts. It wasn’t really that hard. It’s all legal, I—”

  “You keep saying all this is legal,” Schwartz said gruffly.

  “Yeah, it is . . . It’s . . . Am I in trouble?”

  “That depends. Have you done anything wrong?”

  “It’s free. I don’t get any money from this.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “Okay, slow down for a second,” Sharyn said to Chip. “Who pays for your time developing it? The research, the coding, the office space?”

  “Angel investors. They see potential. These days, you gotta have a track record before you start selling apps. That’s what Hook’dup is for us—well, for me. I invited urban explorers, photographers, really anyone who wants to take pictures of the sites to contribute to the app. It’s all wiki-based. People work together.”

  “We know what ‘wiki’ refers to.” Schwartz sounded like he was really starting to lose his patience.

  “Does one of your contributors go by the name ‘Igazi’?” Sharyn asked.

  “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “We’re looking for him. Do you know how to locate him?”

  “Um . . .”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Tell me.”

  “All of our communication has been through TypeKnot, so I don’t know his phone number, or address, or anything. TypeKnot doesn’t keep a record of chats.”

  “I’m going to need the list of your investors and access to the wiki page of contributors.”

  “No, really, I can’t give you all that. It’s supposed to be confidential.”

  “Chip,” Sharyn said firmly. “We’re going to track this information down either with your help or without it. Do you really want added scrutiny by the FBI? Word gets out that you’re at the heart of a federal investigation, that can’t be good for business—or for instilling more trust in your investors.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll help you.”

  To Sharyn, it seemed like he gave in a little too fast there.

  Resisting one moment.

  Then willing to help just seconds later.

  “And records of everyone who has downloaded or is using the app,” Schwartz added.

  “What?” Chip gasped. “Why? Why do you need that?”

  Back to resisting again.

  “For the investigation,” Schwartz said bluntly. “We have a growing body count, and every one of ’em is using this app.”

  “Body count?” Chip gulped. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Are your files back at your office?”

  He nodded.

  “Well then.” Sharyn gestured for him to get moving. “After you.”

  ++++

  I contacted Sharyn, and she told me that she was on the way back to the app developer’s office, that he’d tried to run, but it looked like we would be able to get the information we needed.

  “I didn’t know if you’d heard yet,” I said, “but I wanted to make sure you got word that Canyon passed away.”

  “What? We were just there this morning.” Shock and surprise cut through every word. “He seemed to be recovering.”

  “I know.” Words in instances like this always failed me.

  It’s not a coincidence, Pat. Something else happened.

  Maybe not. Don’t assume!

  All I could think to say was, “I feel terrible for his family.”

  “And those kids who were with him when he was stabbed.”

  “Yeah.”

  Then we were both quiet.

  DeYoung had been clear that I wasn’t to mention the situation with Maria to anyone, so I didn’t bring it up, but in the end just told Sharyn that I would be working at the federal building and to touch base with me later tonight.

  53

  Blake had been hoping that there wouldn’t be much happening at the morgue today, but this was Detroit, and it did average nearly a homicide a day, so he wasn’t too shocked to see the medical examiner’s team transferring a body into the building for an autopsy.

  He and Mannie were
seated at a restaurant across the street. Even given an entire day, he wouldn’t have been able to eat all the ribs that Mannie had polished off in the last fifteen minutes.

  “Dylan always had a thing for drugs.” Mannie wiped some of the barbeque sauce off his chin. “You want me to start poking around, see if any dealers might’ve seen him over the last couple months?”

  “No, not yet,” Blake said. “I don’t want to draw any more attention to us being in the city than we need to.” He tapped his phone. “I’ll stay here, keep an eye on the morgue, and do some online searches for locations where the meeting might occur tomorrow between Fayed and Ali. Why don’t you look for a place where we can take Dylan after we find him.”

  “Somewhere quiet and private?”

  “Yes. You know the kind of place.”

  “I believe I do.” Mannie rose and left the restaurant.

  Using his phone and headphones, Blake watched the footage that’d been uploaded on Wednesday evening at the site of the murder of a young African-American woman and saw two people entering the house. The woman, he didn’t recognize. But he did recognize the man.

  Special Agent Patrick Bowers.

  Hmm.

  If Dylan was here, Bowers might be the answer to everything.

  Working from the assumption that if Bowers was called in to work on a case in Detroit, it would be a serial homicide investigation, Blake took some time to research the details regarding the woman’s death and the theories out there on different forums about how she was killed, and about others who were supposedly murdered by the same man.

  And with every new murder Blake read about, he became more convinced that this had to do with his brother.

  It didn’t take long to figure out that the woman’s autopsy had been earlier this afternoon. So the timing worked perfectly. If Dylan was going to return to the morgue to view the body this evening, as he’d done so often in Los Angeles, Blake would be waiting for him.

  ++++

  Sharyn’s car was still at the 9th Precinct parking lot, so after she and Schwartz had what they needed from Chip, they returned to the station and Schwartz dropped her off.

  To save time, rather than battle traffic and drive to the fed building at this time of day, she found an empty desk at the precinct and flipped open her laptop.

  First, she wrote a note of condolence to Dr. Robbins, the medical examiner, regarding the loss of his son, and offered to help him and his family out if there was anything she could do.

  It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. She decided to follow up later, after the initial swell of support had passed.

  Then, she sorted through what was in front of her.

  Three things in particular:

  (1) Have the Bureau’s Cyber Division analyze the information from Inntoit2U Designs to try to find a relationship between the crime site locations and user analytics.

  (2) Figure out if Dylan really was behind the homicides here in Detroit.

  (3) Do whatever was necessary to draw him out or provoke him to make a mistake.

  She’d heard about Angela Knight and her computer, Lacey, in Cyber. Angela treated Lacey as a fellow agent and, according to what Sharyn had heard, it was best to play along if you wanted to get results. Hoping that they might be able to help, Sharyn put a voice call through to Angela, who immediately transferred her to video instead.

  Angela looked weary and worried, and Sharyn had the sense that the woman hadn’t slept much at all in the last couple days. Or weeks.

  After introducing herself and giving a quick rundown of what was happening, Sharyn said, “Is there any way that someone on your team could review this data regarding the Hook’dup app?”

  Angela glanced anxiously at her watch. “There’s something big going on here, Agent Weist. I can’t guarantee that we could get to this for at least the next twenty-four hours.”

  “This deals with five linked homicides here in Detroit,” Sharyn emphasized. “From everything we know, the killer might very well strike again.”

  Angela bit her lip and shook her head slightly. “I’m not . . . Lacey and I are just really backed up.”

  “At least let me send you the analytics. Maybe if you have a break, you can take a look. We’re specifically searching for a connection between the victims and other users—particularly one with a military background who might be targeting them. Dylan Neeson. I know Pat spoke with you about him earlier.”

  A tired sigh. “I’ll tell you what. Send it to me. I’ll see what I can figure out. If I can’t get to it, I’ll see if Lacey can get it processed.”

  Sharyn thanked her and, after hanging up, immediately passed the information along. Then she moved on to the search for Dylan.

  Her last communication with Simone back in May was through TypeKnot. For that app she’d chosen the username Snowball4, so now she used the same name to begin setting up a profile on Hook’dup to lure the Bluebeard toward her.

  To draw the spider out.

  54

  For the next few hours I remained sequestered in the office on the twenty-third floor working on the geoprofile, entering data, analyzing the locations of the crimes, and puzzling over Maria’s “Russian women” comment.

  I still hadn’t heard from Christie, which also concerned me, but I could only leave so many voicemails and messages. Her secrecy in telling her daughter where she was going unsettled me. It all seemed so out of character for her. However, I finally acknowledged that until she replied, there wasn’t really anything else I could do to reach her.

  Putting my personal issues aside, I followed up on the timing of the crimes in relationship to the work schedules and family obligations of the victims.

  The first one, Maxine Nachmanoff, left for lunch and wasn’t seen again. The second, Gideon Flello, was killed during lunch as well. The remaining victims were murdered in early evening or after dark.

  Patterns.

  Dig deep enough, and they’ll emerge and the mirage of coincidence will evaporate.

  Why did the crimes occur then? Why in those locations?

  Hook’dup? Did they each head out for a discreet sexual encounter?

  The timing for the first three crimes fit with travel times from the victims’ place of work. The other two had been killed at night and could easily have driven to the sites from their residences.

  I cross-checked all of the victims’ credit card transactions, the locations, the amounts, the items purchased, dates, and times, trying to identify if any of the victims were together or near each other when a purchase was made, or were buying similar things from the same retailer. However, I didn’t come up with any statistically significant correlation.

  Then, using the Federal Aerospace Locator and Covert Operation Network, or FALCON, I ran the geoprofile but once again didn’t end up with anything specific related to the potential home base of the offender. So unless there were more victims that we didn’t know about, the link we were looking for was not their residential addresses, which fit in with a Bluebeard offender.

  Finally, my thoughts rotated back to the precinct map and Sproul’s hope of predicting the killer’s next move.

  Think neighborhoods that (1) are near the edge of the precincts, (2) have abandoned homes in a similar distribution to the areas where the previous crimes occurred, and (3) are within two blocks of populated streets.

  Ralph’s ringtone caught my attention. When I picked up, he said, “DeYoung showed me the video, Pat. The one of Maria. It’s terrible.” Then he swore harshly. “It’s worse when you know someone. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s all connected to Blake somehow. You still think Maria was referencing the silent ladies?”

  “I do.”

  “Have you figured out the connection?”

  “I’m wondering if it’s something wit
h that shipping manifest we found, but I don’t know. What about from your end? What else do we know about Dr. Kuznetsov?”

  “Not much. Even the file the CIA has on him is pretty slim. But we do know that he worked with Colonel Alibekov in germ warfare and smallpox research.”

  I’d heard about Alibekov, who changed his name to Ken Alibek and wrote a book back in the nineties called Biohazard after he defected to the United States.

  “The big news, though, is Blake’s pilot landed at a Canadian airport that’s about an hour from Detroit. That’s one of the reasons I called. We don’t have a record of anyone with Blake’s name traveling back into the U.S., but we did find some footage at the border crossing into Detroit that clearly shows him and his partner driving into the States. Fake names but a legit break.”

  “So they’re here in Detroit?”

  “Looks like it. And I’m about to be. I’ll be flying over first thing in the morning after I wrap up a few things here. Should arrive at nine thirty or so.”

  We tentatively planned on me picking him up.

  After the call, I took a few minutes to stretch my legs and walk down the hall to grab some water at the drinking fountain. On the way back, Sharyn called to fill me in on what she’d been investigating. When she was done, she said, “Are you still at the fed building?”

  “Yes. What about you?”

  “I just left the Ninth Precinct a few minutes ago. When do you think you’ll be calling it a day? I’d like to see you.”

  When I checked the time, I found that it was already past seven.

  At this point I was admittedly a little annoyed that I hadn’t heard from Christie. I was hungry. Tired. Needed to decompress. And, though I didn’t really want to stop working, I could see the benefit of comparing notes with Sharyn.

  “You remember how I told you last night that I’d take a rain check on dinner?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “How about I turn that in now?”

  “I’m on my way home, actually. I’m across town from you. Should we meet somewhere? I’d offer to make you dinner but as you might recall, I’m not a very good cook and I really don’t have anything on hand except for some frozen pizzas and oranges. And beer.”