The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  The killer slipped one hand off the rope, grabbed the handle of the skillet and bashed the back of his victim’s head. The body spasmed under the killer. Then the jerky movements stopped. The killer maintained his grip on the rope until the movements of his victim’s chest became feeble and then died.

  The flash of the man’s wristwatch caught his eye. On impulse, he slipped it over the dead man’s hand and dropped it into his pocket. All the while alarms were going off in the killer’s head making it hard for him to think. I panicked. I made a mess. I have blood on my clothes and in my hair. What can I do? I need to get out of here. It’s all Kathleen’s fault. If I wasn’t thinking about her, I wouldn’t have been so careless.

  He dropped the skillet onto the floor and ran back into the bedroom. He pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and slid through the open window and into the bushes.

  He stayed there for a minute, slowed his breathing and looked around for intentional or incidental observers. He saw no one. He missed the nosy neighbor whose wrinkled finger pulled back the curtain ever so slightly from her kitchen window. She watched as he emerged from the bushes. The hood of his sweatshirt was up but not drawn as tightly as he usually pulled it. She got a good look at his face as he flashed by her window. He ran to the back of the property and into the woods.

  The neighbor punched 9-1-1 into her phone. “Someone just crawled out of the window of my neighbor’s house,” she said.

  Twenty-Five

  Not one light – not even the one in the porch – welcomed Ted back home that night. As his headlights swung across the grass, they caught sight of formless lumps in the lawn. Curious, Ted grabbed his flashlight to check them out on his way inside.

  The beam of light landed on a pair of boxer shorts, then a T-shirt, then a half dozen pairs of rolled-up socks. He scanned the beam in an arc across the whole yard. Items of his clothing were everywhere. No doubt about it, he thought, Ellen is pissed.

  He gathered up an armload and figured the rest could wait until morning. He tried to slide his house key into the door lock but couldn’t get it to go in. He turned the key over and tried again. Still, it would not slide in. He set down the bundle of clothing in his arms and shone the flashlight on the ring of keys in his hand. He was certain he had the right key, but tried another one anyway. No luck. None with the third key either.

  He heard a window slide up and turned toward it. “Hey, Dad,” Pete said.

  “Hey, Pete. Could you come to the door? I can’t get my key to work.”

  “Mom told us not to, Dad.”

  “What?”

  “She changed the locks and said we weren’t allowed to let you in.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I wish, Dad. She threw your clothes out in the yard, too.”

  “Yeah, I kinda noticed that.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “That’s okay, son. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, Pete.”

  “She got those locks that lock both ways.”

  “What do you mean Pete?”

  “Like you need a key to unlock it from the inside, too. Or else I’d let you in.”

  “You don’t want to disobey your mother, Pete.”

  “I don’t care, Dad. This is your house, too. I’d let you in but I don’t have the key.”

  “That’s okay, Pete. Don’t you worry about a thing. Go on back to bed. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Okay?”

  “Sure, Dad. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, son.”

  Ted scooped up the armload of clothing he’d dropped on the porch and carried them back to his car. He opened the trunk and set them inside. He grabbed the emergency blanket and, leaving the trunk open, tossed it into his back seat. He’d sleep there overnight.

  He went back to the yard to gather more clothing. He transferred a second load to the trunk and was starting on the third when he spotted his black suit in a plastic dry-cleaning bag. He hated that suit. He’d only worn it one time – the day he went to his baby’s funeral. He fell to his knees beside it and sobbed. He collapsed forward and beat his fists on the grass. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Why did you take our baby? Why?” He raged against God and beat his fists until they were sore. He wanted to stop but he couldn’t. His anger, his sorrow, his grief over his baby’s death, his wife’s rejection and his life choices crashed down on him in the darkness of his front lawn. In the space of one day, he ceased being a resident and turned into a visitor to his own home.

  A pair of headlights from a passing car hit his eyes and he rose. He climbed to the back seat of his car and pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. He squirmed around seeking the least uncomfortable position in the cramped back seat. Satisfied that he had found the highest level of comfort possible, he closed his eyes. Before he could fall asleep, his cellphone rang.

  Twenty-Six

  Lucinda stumbled into her apartment and faced the wrath of Chester. He was hungry and she was late. She opened a can of tuna with egg bits and set the whole thing beside his bowl. He eyeballed her with the look worthy of Miss Manners and then dug in.

  Lucinda was hungry, too, but far too tired to fix anything to eat. She pulled a bottle of Pinot Grigio out of the refrigerator and poured a glass. As it filled, she slipped the shoes off her feet. She left them in the kitchen and padded back to the bedroom.

  She sipped on the wine as she undressed and slid into an oversized T-shirt. She snuggled into bed. She was asleep before the glass was empty.

  When her phone rang, she slammed her alarm clock twice before she realized it wasn’t the source of the obnoxious noise. With her eye still closed, she picked up the telephone receiver. “Yes. What is it?”

  It was Lieutenant Cummings, another Homicide detective from her department. “Pierce, I’ve got a situation here that looks something like your guy, but then it doesn’t. I thought you might want to come take a look.”

  It was as if someone had slammed a needle straight to the heart. A rush of adrenaline surged through every cell in her body – her wakefulness instantaneous. “What’s the same about it?” she asked.

  “One victim – strangled, smashed face, stretched out neatly on the floor.”

  Lucinda shot to her feet. She hit the speakerphone button and pulled the T-shirt over her head.

  “And didn’t someone spot your guy in a hooded sweatshirt?” Cummings asked.

  “Sure did,” Lucinda said buttoning her blouse.

  “We’ve got a witness – a woman who looked out from the house next door. She saw a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt climb out of the bedroom window on the side of the house.”

  Lucinda’s fingers froze on the bottom button. “Did she see his face?”

  “Yep, we got her working with the forensic artist right now.”

  The racing of Lucinda’s heart kicked up another notch. “Incredible. That’s the best news I’ve heard in days.”

  “Don’t get too excited, Pierce. I’m not convinced this was your guy.”

  “Why not?” Lucinda asked as she wiggled into a skirt.

  “It’s a triple homicide.”

  “Three people killed?”

  “Yes. And one of them is a little girl.”

  “Damn. All the same MO?”

  “No. It doesn’t look like it. Want to come on down?”

  “Where are you?”

  “1204 Linden St.”

  “I’m on my way.” Lucinda slid on her holster, gun and suit jacket. She looked around for her shoes for a few seconds before she remembered she’d left them in the kitchen. She grabbed her cellphone, retrieved her shoes and speed-dialed Ted on her way to the car. “We’ve got a triple homicide that looks like our guy. You want to meet me there?”

  “A triple?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “See you there?” she asked.

  “On my way.”

  Lucinda pulled into a neighbor
hood dominated by ranch houses built in the 60s. She didn’t need to look for the correct street number. The house in question was obvious – the unearthly glow of artificial light illuminated just one home. making it stand out from the rest. It was the middle of the night but the commotion at the crime scene stirred up the whole block. Clusters of neighbors scattered throughout nearby yards outside the perimeter of the yellow tape. She parked behind the crime-scene RV.

  She peered over to the side of the house where lights on poles lit up a small army of Tyvek-suited bodies busy at work. She slid out of her car. She’d taken only two steps from her vehicle when she heard, “Lieutenant Pierce.”

  She turned toward the voice and noticed a TV camera pointed in her direction. She turned away and scurried under the tape into the yard where Ted awaited her arrival.

  More media voices hollered her name, their intensity and repetition turned into a hum that sounded like a medieval incantation in Lucinda’s ears. She gave no sign that she heard them as she walked up the steps, donned a pair of gloves and pulled Tyvek booties over her shoes.

  Two men in coroner’s office overalls waited in the living room beside a stretcher. “I’ll be as quick as I can, guys,” Lucinda said as she walked past them.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” they responded in unison.

  She took great care as she stepped around the two bodies in the hall with Ted on her heels. The sight of the little girl churned up the wine in her stomach like a vat of boiling acid. She swallowed hard to keep from losing it.

  In the bedroom, she crouched down by the woman’s body. She saw it right away. “Ted, look,” she said pointing at the woman’s head. A gold and lapis lazuli earring adorned one ear lobe. “It’s him.”

  She looked up and hollered to the lieutenant who’d called her to the scene. “Cummings?”

  “Yep, Pierce?”

  “Did you find another earring like this one anywhere?”

  “No. Come into the bathroom and look at this.”

  Lucinda maneuvered around the bodies and went across the hallway and to Lieutenant Cummings’ side.

  “It looks like she’d just taken a shower,” Cummings said. “The walls are still wet in the shower area and there’s a damp towel on the floor.” He pointed to the pair of earrings, watch and bracelet sitting on a shelf. “It looks like she took those pieces off before she got in the shower. So why would she be wearing one earring that doesn’t match this other stuff at all?”

  “It’s our guy, Cummings.”

  “That earring’s missing from the last scene?”

  “Yeah. But what did he take from here? Did she have a necklace or something else that matched these pieces?”

  “Don’t have a clue, Pierce. But let me show you something the coroner pointed out.”

  They crowded into the hallway by the two bodies. The sight of the little girl drove bile into Lucinda’s throat again.

  “See the white band of skin on his wrist,” Cummings said as he pointed. “Coroner thinks he might have been wearing a watch.”

  “Interesting,” Lucinda said. “What did he say about the means of death?”

  “He thinks the woman was strangled before her face was smashed in. The man had blunt force trauma to his head before death, but his death was caused by ligature strangulation from behind. The little girl, though, was not strangled. She died from blunt force trauma to the head. That’s what he thinks here. Said he can confirm that at autopsy.”

  “Why did he kill these two?” Lucinda thought but didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud until Cummings answered her.

  “I think they surprised him. There’s a set of keys under the male victim’s body as if he’d just used them to unlock the front door.”

  After making sure techs had bagged the hands of all three victims, Lucinda and Ted retreated to the living room and the two men from the coroner’s office headed up the hall to retrieve the dead.

  “I wonder where the good doctor was earlier this evening,” Lucinda mused.

  “You want to pay him a visit?” Ted asked.

  “No, not yet. I want to talk to the babysitter first. Find out when he got home tonight.”

  “Lucinda, I still say Spencer makes no sense as the perp. Even less sense after viewing this scene. Look, the perp here killed a little girl. No one laid a finger on Ruby when Kathleen was killed.”

  “Yes. Think about that, Ted. A little girl whom Spencer did not know was brutally murdered, but his own daughter’s spared at a similar scene. What does that tell you?”

  Before Ted could respond a voice shouted from the front door. “Lieutenant.”

  “Yes.” Lucinda turned toward the uniformed officer standing there.

  “Got a special delivery here for you.”

  Lucinda walked over to the doorway and took a Manila envelope from his hand. Her name was scrawled across the front. She undid the clasp and slid out a single sheet of paper – a copy of the forensic sketch. She gasped and wordlessly handed the piece of paper to Ted.

  “Shit!” Ted exclaimed. A face framed inside a sweatshirt stared back at him. It bore a remarkable resemblance to Dr. Evan Spencer.

  Twenty-Seven

  After the fiasco on Linden Street, he headed to his private refuge – the room he rented in a shabby Victorian on the sad side of town. In its heyday, it must have been a source of pride for its owner. Now, although the yard inside the wrought iron fence was mowed, no one took the time to trim. Straggles of grass and weeds ran along the fence line and around the perimeter of the building. The sidewalk was cracked and irregular. The paint on the loose steps blistered and peeled.

  In the lobby, the once regal stairway led to a second floor. Neglected for decades, the carved wood had turned dark and dull. He went up the creaking stairs and ducked into his room. It was a place to go, not a place to be. On a normal day, he’d be oblivious to his surroundings but in the agitated aftermath of the botched killing, it depressed him.

  The once brilliant red roses and green leaves on the bedspread had long ago faded to an ugly, non-descript blur. Burn marks marred the edges of the nightstand and the dresser where forgotten butts had singed the wood. The tuning knob was missing on the tiny television set. He used a cheap pair of pliers to twist it and change the channels.

  He grabbed a towel, shampoo, a bar of soap, a change of clothes and an empty plastic grocery bag and headed to the communal bathroom. He stripped off his bloodstained clothes and stuffed them all into the bag before he stepped into the shower. He washed carefully, getting rid of every drop of blood on his face and in his hair.

  He noticed the scratch on the back of his hand as he toweled off. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he muttered as he rubbed at the red line in a futile attempt to make it disappear. You really screwed up this time, asshole.

  Back in his room, he paced back and forth in the tiny space. It had started so perfectly. Everything as I planned. Then that damned kid came in. Then the man. Damn them! They ruined it. Could I have done anything different? Could I? What? I can’t think of anything. Nothing. I was trapped. They forced me to do it.

  In his agitation, he turned too fast and banged his shin on the nightstand. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he said as he raised one leg to rub on the injury and hopped around on the other. He lay down flat on top of the bed and closed his eyes, willing himself into a state of calm. But the what-ifs kept tumbling in his head.

  In minutes, he was back up and pacing again. Wait, he thought. His feet froze in place. That’s it. I’ll return to the same neighborhood. And I’ll do it again. This time, I’ll do it right. This time, a house with only a woman in it. No dumb kid. No man. Just bliss. That will fix things. That will make up for tonight.

  He snatched up the bag with his blood-spattered clothing and bounded down the stairs and into the street. He walked ten blocks before cutting up an alley and dropping the bag in a dumpster behind a diner.

  The next morning, he loitered around the bus top at the end of Poplar Street keeping his eyes
on every opening door down the block. Being just one street up from Linden made him hum with excitement one moment and shake with anxiety the next. He identified two houses where women emerged without kids. When the work morning traffic had died down, he strolled up the block to check out where they lived.

  At the second house up on his left, he realized a pick-up truck was parked at the top of the driveway. Not a good sign. He moved on to the next possible site, the fifth house on the right. That drive was empty. He saw no lights or any other signs of life. He smiled and continued his saunter down to the corner where he turned right and headed away from the neighborhood. He’d return before the work day was over.

  Twenty-Eight

  Terror filled Charley’s mind. She stood in the middle of a box consisting of four walls of concrete blocks – each wall only four blocks long. Above her head storm clouds churned, dropping lower with every passing moment. Lightning struck down hitting the walls but, so far, missing her.

  She had to get out. If she didn’t, she knew she would die. She pushed one block and it fell. But as it hit the ground, she heard a scream. It sounded like her mother. In a frenzy, Charley pushed out another block. As it fell, there was another scream. She had to get out. She had to get to her mother.

  She pushed one more block out. Her mother screamed. Then it dawned on her – every block she pushed out was hitting her mother. A scream hovered on her lips but before it could escape, her eyes flew open. She exhaled a jagged breath, its edges tinged with the whispered remnants of her unfulfilled shriek. She watched the ceiling fan as it made lazy circles over her head. She looked beside her. The blocks were gone.