Daemon’s Mark

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “No joy, ma’am,” he said. “They cycle the tapes every twelve hours and they’d already been erased.”

  “Fucking perfect,” I muttered. Andy gave me his sad-puppy look, and I waved him off. I hate waiting for a case to break when there’s nothing I, personally, can do to dispense justice. I looked at Russ Meyer, sitting in the interrogation room staring at the ceiling, drumming discordantly on the tabletop.

  Pete Anderson, our CSU investigator, was still collecting evidence in the scuzzball’s apartment, but I had Russ’s cell phone, bagged and tagged. I slipped on gloves and took it out of the evidence baggie, scrolling through the call history.

  There were a series of photos from the night before, and I perched myself on the edge of Lane’s desk to look through them, just to be a pain in her ass.

  Lane cleared her throat, and I turned the screen toward her. A waitress’s ample bosom filled the screen, poured into a black lace top with a nametag that read, improbably, trouble. “There’re about twenty of these,” I said.

  “Looks like a bar-hop.”

  “I can’t believe what passes for a night out these days,” Lane sniffed.

  “Yeah,” I said, scrolling past three more rack shots, “it’s sure a far cry from a wholesome outing at the roller disco with the musical stylings of Andy Gibb and Leif Garrett.”

  Lane slammed her hands down on her keyboard. “How much older am I than you, Lieutenant? Five years? Seven? What gives you the right to judge me, just because you batted your eyes and got into a desk job early instead of being stuck on the streets because you didn’t suck the right cock?”

  “You don’t want to go there with me,” I said, still looking at Russ’s cell phone. “I worked my ass off on the streets. I didn’t sleep my way into this job and if I did, that would just mean you were jealous of my good looks and charm.”

  A long stretch of quiet. I deliberately kept my eyes on my work, not giving Lane the satisfaction of a reaction. I wasn’t losing control of my squad because of some self-righteous sex detective.

  “Maybe I was mistaken,” Lane said stiffly, looking back at Lily’s autopsy report.

  “Maybe you were indeed,” I said. The next photo in the text history was a self-portrait of Russ and the type of bar skank who thinks that a shredded denim skirt and a cowboy hat are a look.

  Lane opened her mouth, but I shushed her. “Hex me.” The timestamp of the photo was 2:23 A.M.

  “What?” Lane demanded. I flipped through my notes from the scene, finding Kronen’s estimate of how long Lily had been in the water.

  “Time of death was between one and three A.M., best guess. You know how hard it is when a body goes in the water…”

  Lane lifted her shoulders. “So?”

  “Look,” I said, showing her the phone. Lane sat back, her plump face folding into lines of displeasure.

  “Shit. You just gave him an alibi.”

  “That I did,” I said. “Let’s figure out where this is so we can confirm it.”

  Bryson came over and looked at the screen. “That’s the OK Corral,” he said. I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Do a lot of clubbing on your off nights, David?”

  He smirked. “I’d recognize those cute little cowboy hats anywhere. They do a line-dancing contest on the bar Saturday nights…”

  I held up my hand. “I got it. You and I are going down there. Lane, Meyer is all yours when the lawyer shows up. Maybe you can irritate something else out of him about Lily.”

  “My pleasure,” Lane said, pushing back from her desk with a glare and going toward the elevators and the bathroom.

  “You’re being kinda hard on her, aren’t you?” Bryson said as I grabbed my jacket from my office.

  “I don’t like some overgrown honor student foisted on me,” I said. “She’s way too eager and she’s a pain in the ass.”

  “That’s fair,” said Bryson. “But you were a way bigger pain when you came to Homicide.”

  “David, don’t go making sense. It goes against the natural order of things.”

  We took the Nova down Devere, to the wasteland of cheap bars, biker hangouts and piercing parlors behind Nocturne University. The OK Corral was on the outskirts, beyond the safety zone that college students populated, out in tweaker, hooker and bad-guy territory.

  I automatically noted a few road bikes parked at the curb, flying gang colors, and shrugged out of my suit jacket, unbuttoning the top button of my shirt and pulling it loose to hide my badge and waist rig. I didn’t want to look threatening if I didn’t have to.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Bryson said, shoving the metal fire door open like he owned the place. The smell of stale beer, sawdust, vomit and sex slapped me across the face along with a loud blast of Brooks & Dunn.

  “Clearly,” I told Bryson.

  A blonde girl was winding herself around a pole on one of the raised platforms at the rear of the bar, apathetic as if she were waiting for a bus. The décor, a few token hay bales, longhorns and strands of barbed wire crisscrossing the ceiling, was about as sad as the rest of the place.

  I tapped on the bar and motioned the bartender over, showing him the cell phone picture. “You see a skinny tweaker kid in here last night snapping these?”

  He shrugged one thin shoulder, his bones poking against the skin. “Maybe. What you want him for?”

  Bryson and I showed our shields and the bartender’s eyes darted around, taking inventory of his scant customers. Probably trying to remember any outstanding warrants.

  “We’re not looking to bust you,” I said. “Just tell us if the kid was in here or not.”

  “Yeah,” the bartender sighed. “Threw him out at last call. Drunk off his ass.”

  Last call was 4 A.M. in the city limits. Assuming that the barkeep wasn’t covering for Russ, he had an even more rock-solid alibi than we thought. I pulled a folded picture of Lily Dubois on the autopsy table from my hip pocket and showed it. “How about her?”

  “Lemme see…” He took it with fingers black on the tips from holding a glass smoke bowl. After he squinted for a second, he recoiled. “Is she dead?”

  “Nah, she’s napping,” Bryson snorted. “Just tell us: You seen her, yes or no?”

  The bartender grimaced. “I knew she looked young.”

  “Meaning?” I prompted.

  “Look, I tell you what I know and you don’t bust me for serving a minor, right?”

  “We’re not Vice, you twitchy little freak,” Bryson said. “Just spill it.”

  “She was in here,” said the bartender, going to the register and digging around under the cash tray. “She ordered a gin and tonic. Not a gin and tonic sort of place, you feel me?”

  I looked at the gyrating girl again. She was having a hard time staying upright. “I get it.”

  “Anyway, her ID was sketchy but we were slammed, so I took it to start a tab and she never came back for it. Never paid her fucking tab, neither.” He passed me the small laminate square, and I ran my thumb over Lily Dubois’s face. The ID wasn’t obviously a fake, but it gave her age as twenty-two, so it had to be.

  “You didn’t think she looked maybe a little youthful to be in this shithole?” Bryson asked the bartender. He spread his hands.

  “Man, this place has dancers twenty-five years old that look younger than that chickie. She had the cleavage, she had the attitude, and I didn’t look too hard. My mistake.”

  “Yes,” I agreed pleasantly. “Your mistake that allowed her to be killed and dumped in the bay. Who did she leave with?”

  The bartender didn’t appear remorseful in the least. “I don’t keep track of the skirts in here, lady. I did my civic duty and talked to you cops. Now I got work to do.” He retreated to polish glasses. At least until we left, and he returned to dealing meth to his customers.

  “You have got to find a new place to hang out,” I told Bryson. “This is just sad.”

  “Dead end, too,” he said. “No cameras, no witnesses.”
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  “Don’t be too sure,” I said. “Give me fifty bucks.”

  Bryson frowned. “You make more than I do. Pay scale for lieutenants is a whole gods-damned galaxy away from us grunts.”

  “You want results, David? Give me the fifty bucks.”

  He counted out two twenties and two fives and passed them to me. I crossed the sawdust, peanut shells and broken glass crunching under my boots. The dancer perked up when I approached. “You want a private session?”

  I gave her a peek at my shield. “I want to talk to you. You working last night?”

  She stopped moving and tottered to the edge of the platform in her hot-pink platform heels. “Yeah. Usually I’m days but I took a double. I was here until closing. Napped in the back.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Dakota.”

  “Original.” I fanned the photograph of Lily and the money under her nose. “You see this girl leave with anyone, Dakota?”

  The dancer bit her lip. “Money first.” I passed her the bills and she tucked them into her bra, disappearing the green folds like a magic trick. “She left around the beginning of my shift with Johnny Boy. I was glad, too—she was dancing like a tramp and cutting into my tips.”

  “Johnny Boy?” I said. The dancer shrugged.

  “Well, it’s not, like, his real name. That’s something all long and foreign and stuff.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Silly me.”

  “He comes in every night,” she said, starting to gyrate again as the song changed. “Around nine. Stays until two or so. Unless he meets a girl he likes, then it’s earlier.”

  “Thanks,” I said, pocketing Lily’s photo. “We’ll be back.”

  CHAPTER 5

  It was getting near lunch time, and the hole in my stomach told me I’d only had coffee since my abruptly interrupted supper the night before. I have a were metabolism, and when it demands food it’s hard to ignore.

  “Hey, I’m starving,” I said as we passed my favorite burrito stand. “Let’s stop and pick up lunch for the squad.”

  I cut across traffic, garnering an angry chorus of horns that I returned with a finger. Some people have no respect for the police and their lunch.

  Bryson stayed in the passenger seat. “Hey. Get me a churro.”

  “Do I look like your waitress?” I asked as I climbed out.

  “No, but I did give you fifty bucks. Make sure it’s fresh. I don’t want one that’s been sitting out for half an hour.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” I told him before I headed across the sidewalk to the open-air taco truck.

  The guys who worked the truck knew me, and I put in an order for one of everything that the squad liked to eat. Lane would just have to fend for herself.

  I dug my wallet out and paid in cash—I had more than enough on me to bribe Dakota, but I liked letting Bryson do my dirty work for me. A perk of being a lieutenant.

  Turning to head back to the Nova, I found my way blocked by a very tall, very thin gentleman in an all-black suit and aviator sunglasses that reflected my own tired, makeup-free face back at me. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  The taco truck driver tapped me on the shoulder. “Miss? You forgot your extra habanero salsa.” That was for Andy—he liked his food nuclear, contrary to all outward appearances.

  “Thanks,” I said, palming the plastic bucket. “And I ask again, sir … can I help you?”

  Skinny looked me over, head to toe. I wasn’t unused to the reaction from straight men, but there was something about him that set me off. I opened my nostrils, over the scent of frying beef and chilies. He was a were.

  “The Duboises sent me,” he said. Just that, no explanation, as if I could read minds.

  “How nice for you,” I said. “They like the tacos here, too?”

  “They sent me to look in on you,” he said. “Make sure progress was being made on the case. On Russ Meyer.”

  I shut my eyes. The Duboises had found out my former suspect’s name. Crap. “I’m sorry,” I said, smiling mightily at Skinny. “I can’t confirm or deny any rumors about an open case, Mr.…?”

  “Teddy will do for now, Lieutenant.”

  “Teddy. Is that supposed to be one of those ironic nicknames? Never mind, I don’t care. You can tell the Duboises that I’m sorry for their loss, but this case is none of your business, Teddy, so why don’t you toddle on back to 1987, where those shades came from?”

  He showed some teeth, fangs at the ready. Great, he was in a bad mood as well as a bad dresser. I gently set down the two paper bags of food on the bench at the trolley stop by the curb. No sense in my lunch getting mangled.

  “I’m here to ensure that nothing is overlooked,” Teddy said. “And that the police give Russ Meyer the strongest justice possible. If they fail, I’ll report that back to the Duboises, too.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I don’t know where you’re getting your intel from, but it’s old. Russ Meyer has an alibi, and I don’t like being harassed while I’m just trying to buy a gods-damned beef burrito.”

  “Well,” said Teddy. “If you were doing your job instead of stuffing your face, maybe it wouldn’t be necessary for the pack to check up on your progress.”

  He just had to go there. I grabbed Teddy by his string tie and pulled him down so our faces were even. “You know what else I don’t like, Miami Vice? Pack thugs sticking their snouts into my police work.”

  I heard a click and saw the sheen of a switchblade in Teddy’s hand. He was fast, even for a were. “Let go of me,” he warned. “You don’t, you’re going against the pack.”

  You can tell a lot about a man by how far he’s willing to go against a cop, especially a lady cop like myself. If they back off and don’t get into trouble, it means they’re sane, or at least reasonable. If they pull a weapon without a flinch, they’re either a psychopath or they think they’re untouchable. I was betting Big Teddy figured on the latter.

  Oh, well. He wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake.

  “Hex you,” I told Teddy, “and Hex your pack.” I flicked the top off the habanero salsa with my thumb and tossed the contents of the tub into his face. Chilies burn plain humans—in a were’s eyes and soft tissue, they’re worse than taking a Taser jolt straight up the nose.

  Teddy let out a scream and dropped the knife, falling on the sidewalk and clawing at his face in what Ithought, perhaps uncharitably, was an overdramatic and hysterical manner. I pocketed the switchblade, which was black enamel with bone inlay—very James Dean—and turned to the taco truck clerk, who was watching the whole proceeding with interest. “Agua, por favor, ” I said. He passed me a bottle and I doused Teddy’s head with it, washing away the peppers and specks of cilantro.

  “You tell Nate Dubois that I’m doing my job,” I said, bending over him.

  “Bitch,” he moaned. “I’m blind.”

  “And yet, your mouth still works,” I said. “So you can also tell him that I resent being muscled like some cheap gutterwolf whore and if he sends one of his thugs after me again, I’m going to forget that he’s just lost his daughter and get real damn pissy.”

  Bryson came to my elbow, looking down at Teddy. To his credit, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised. “You okay, Wilder?” he said, picking up the food from the trolley bench.

  I looked at Teddy. “Are we?”

  After a long moment he glared at me, and nodded once. “Fine. But you can’t find the killer, we find you.”

  “Don’t threaten me while you’re lying on the ground with salsa all over your face,” I said. “It’s not effective.” I turned and left him there. Once I was in the car, my hands started to shake, a delayed reaction from my body letting me know how close to bleeding I’d come.

  The Duboises were leaning hard, and I knew that if I didn’t produce results soon, their pack would take its pound of flesh out of me first and the killer second. I really hoped this Johnny Boy was good for it.

  I parked in the employee lot
at the Plaza and let Bryson take lunch to the SCS while I went into Pete’s office.

  “What do you know about fake IDs?” I said, passing him an enchilada and extra cheese.

  “I know that I got kicked out of a bar in college using one my buddy and I made with Photoshop,” he said.

  “Never had much use for them since.”

  “You got kicked out of a bar in this city?” I said, raising my eyebrows. I didn’t know there were any college taverns that actually enforced ID laws in my town.

  “Not here,” Pete said. “I was at Stanford for my undergrad.”

  I sat down on his rolling stool, fishing Lily’s bogus license out of my pocket. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Pete, but if that’s the case, then what the hell are you doing working for the police?”

  “I like the work and the coffee is better than at a research lab,” Pete said, solemn. “What’ve you got there?”

  “Lily Dubois’s fake ID,” I said. “I was hoping we could find out who made it, trace her descent into the tawdry nightlife, that sort of thing.”

  “I can’t,” Pete said. “But I’m sure one of my buddies from the ID Bureau can. I keep in touch with those guys.”

  “Great,” I said, taking it back. “Come on.” I walked us down to the fire door and through a dank stairwell into the lower floor of the old bomb shelter, a tunnel that ran between the morgue and Justice Plaza. It was a handy shortcut, but I didn’t come down here if I could help it.

  Not fifty yards away, I’d shot Annemarie Marceaux to death. They’d washed away the blood and the chalk outline from the Internal Affairs investigation, but the memory was as strong as ever. I swore I could still smell the gunpowder from my .38 revolver, hear the hollow boom of my holdout weapon, my last resort after Annemarie took my Sig.

  “Spooky down here,” Pete commented. “I’d rather walk aboveground, even when the weather is crap.”

  “You aren’t the only one,” I murmured, breathing again, finally, as we climbed the stairs to the emergency entrance in the morgue.