Another cop stood outside Roc VanVeter’s door. Young, looking to be around twenty-five, and clean-cut, he seemed to recognize Will Brannock. “He’s outside on the balcony, Will. Brace yourself. It’s gory as hell in there.”
“Thanks, Ryan. Julia, this is Officer Ryan Karns. Ryan, this is Julia Cass. She’s just started in your homicide unit.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Nice to meet you, Detective. Welcome to the CPD. You’re starting out with a real messy case.”
“Yeah, I’m finding that out. Nice to meet you, too.”
Julia was pleased to know another new colleague by name, but she braced herself as Will opened the door to Roc VanVeter’s apartment. It did not look like the elegant, traditionally decorated hallway outside. It was as sparsely modern as modern could be, done all in black and white with a touch of red; geometrics and stripes and chrome and mirrored everything. It was quiet, the air conditioner turned down to very cold.
“Good God, it feels like Antarctica in here,” Will said, inspecting the room. “It doesn’t appear that anything’s been touched inside this room, but we’ll let forensics sweep the place and hope to hell they find something to help us.”
There were three long leather couches, two white and one black, identical otherwise, each with three oversized red cushions, and very modern with low backs and no arms. A black fireplace was the focal point on one wall, the other walls painted white. Paintings were everywhere, all in large black frames, all nudes made of curving slashes of black paint. The carpet was thick white plush with zebra-skin throw rugs and one large red leather recliner near a wall of plate-glass windows that looked out on a fabulous river view.
“Well, there’s our victim,” said Will. “Good God Almighty.”
Roc VanVeter was hanging outside on a long, wide outdoor balcony. He had been strung up by the neck, his feet dangling about a foot above the ground.
Julia inhaled deeply and let her breath out slowly, preparing herself. “Let’s check out the rest of the place first.”
They walked down the interior hall into VanVeter’s bedroom and quickly identified the actual location of the grisly murder.
“He must’ve killed him in that chair and then moved him out onto the balcony.”
Julia followed Will’s pointing finger. There was a huge glass door that led onto the balcony, and a trail of blood stained the white carpet from the death chair through the outside door. “He cut his tongue out in here, then took him out there to hang him. Why would he do it that way?”
“Who knows? The guy’s crazy,” offered Will. “Okay, let’s get this done.”
Outside on the open-air balcony, the August heat hit them like an oven blast after the frigidity of the interior of the apartment. VanVeter was swinging slightly in the hot wind off the river. He had on black trousers and gray New Balance sneakers without socks. The killer had removed the man’s shirt and left it on the bedroom floor. Tattoos of every shape and color covered VanVeter’s torso, among them a big eagle with spread wings and a geometric design that looked like the sacred cultural tattoos of Hawaiians and Samoans. More inked pictures decorated his arms, with one that said MOMMY DEAREST inside a heart. His eyes were open and staring, blood staining his face and chest red from when the tongue was removed. TWO was written on the floor in blood.
“Looks like the killer left us some more messages,” Will said.
Julia turned and looked at Will where he stood with his back to a different plate-glass window, one through which Julia could see a second bedroom with red walls and a huge round white bed. On the glass wall separating it from the balcony, more words had been scrawled in blood, probably written with the victim’s tongue: PROVERBS 10:31.
“Are you familiar with that verse, Will?”
“Not offhand.”
“I’ll pull it up on my phone.”
It just took a second or two to pull it up. Julia read the Bible verse, then looked at Will. “Are you ready for this?”
“Shoot.”
“Proverbs chapter ten, verse thirty-one, says, ‘The mouth of the just brings forth wisdom; but the fraudulent tongue shall be cut out.’ ”
Will stared at her. “Fraudulent tongue. So we’re right about the revenge thing. VanVeter finally went after the wrong guy.”
“Unless the slasher’s pitching a false lead and trying to throw us off.”
“In my book, cutting off the tongue points to an act of revenge for something someone said.”
“Maybe he wants to be caught.”
“Or is just toying with us,” Will said. “We need to check out the databases again and see if we can find a similar MO.”
“I’ve already done that, and so have you.”
“There’s got to be a connection between these two victims. Something they were in on together, something that wronged the killer.”
Will stared at the man hanging from the balcony. “Both are high-profile and in the news a lot. He might just want victims that will cause a frenzy in the media. People who can catapult his murders into fame and history, make him famous like Ted Bundy.”
“Yeah, well, that’s already happened.”
No sooner had Julia spoken than they heard the thut-thut of rotors and a news helicopter swept into view from across the river. She’d heard the Chattanooga CBS affiliate had recently gotten a chopper but hadn’t seen it in action yet. It soared toward them, and they watched helplessly as it hovered above the building, a cameraman hanging out the door, his camera trained on them and Roc VanVeter’s mutilated body.
Will tried to wave them off, holding up his badge, but the forensic unit had not arrived yet to put up the privacy shields. They couldn’t cut down the victim, not until the ME arrived and released the body, so there was little they could do. Julia just hoped the news team wasn’t working on a live feed.
“Wait a minute. I’m going to check out what they’re saying on VanVeter’s TV.”
Inside the living room, she turned on the giant seventy-inch LCD flat-screen television and caught the latest news report. Her worst fears were realized when she saw the scene on the balcony unfolding before her eyes and for all of Chattanooga to see. She watched as Will continued to try to shield the corpse from the camera. He was on his cell phone now, trying to get the helicopter ordered out of downtown airspace.
The female news anchor was still talking, still winging it so early in the story. “It appears the victim is Roc VanVeter himself, who, we have recently learned, lives in the penthouse apartment that we now have on camera. The man on the balcony looks to be a law enforcement officer but has not yet been identified. From what we’ve seen, it looks like the infamous radio personality has hanged himself. Although we can’t verify that at this point, it appears that is the case from our reporters arriving on the scene.”
Julia grabbed a folded black velvet throw off the couch and headed outside. Will grabbed one end of it, and they stretched it across the crime scene as best they could. It worked, or Will’s attempts to call them off did, because the helicopter hovered only a few more minutes before banking left and heading out over the river.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before Will’s TBI forensic team showed up with a standing screen that would conceal the body from air surveillance or vantage points from surrounding buildings. The team got right to work, and when Peter Tipton, the medical examiner, showed up, Will and Julia stood with him while they waited for the photographer to take his still shots. Another technician was filming the crime scene process from beginning to end. They were top-notch and everything was done by the book. The longer Julia was on this case, the more respect she had for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Pete shook his head. “By the amount of blood on the body, the killer severed the tongue while the victim was still alive. Did he take the tongue this time, too?”
Will said, “Yes, but only part of it, just like at the Lockhart scene.”
“It’s the same guy. It has to be,” said Julia. “There’s
not been enough news coverage yet for a copycat. No one knows this many details about the crime scene, anyway.”
“True,” said Will. “But now that the news media’s got hold of the fact that it’s VanVeter, it’s going to go viral.”
“Great, just great,” Julia muttered under her breath.
Behind her, the television reporter was still talking about the murder. “We’ve just gotten word that Roc VanVeter’s death is actually a murder that may be tied to the recent killing of Judge Lucien Lockhart . . .”
“Oh no,” Julia said, looking at Will.
“. . . We’ve heard from a reputable source that both victims had their tongues removed.”
The male commentator chimed in, seemingly excited about the shocking nature of this new information. “If that’s true, then the Tongue Slasher has struck again, just as we feared, and he’s still on the loose, maybe even stalking another victim. These two tragic murders just might be the first and second of many mutilation murders in this city.”
“I can’t believe they can get away with this kind of reporting,” said Peter Tipton.
“And who leaked information about the tongue mutilation so soon after Lockhart was killed?” Julia said. “We need to find out and prosecute them.”
“This is not good, and getting worse,” said Will.
Peter Tipton walked behind the privacy screen and began to examine the body. He felt the front pockets and pulled out a key chain with two keys on it. “Looks like a car key and probably the apartment door key. There’s a book of matches.”
“Does it have a logo on it?” Julia asked quickly.
“It says Studio Zero.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a nightclub two or three miles from here,” Will told them. “I checked it out when I was researching the Battle Street Ten gang. They like to hang out there.”
“That could be the connection we’re looking for,” Julia said.
“We’ll soon see. As soon as we get done here, we’ll check out his coworkers and see if he has any personal connection with Studio Zero. That goes for the judge, too. It’ll be interesting to see if they frequented the same nightclub.”
“So you are Mr. VanVeter’s personal assistant here at the radio station?”
The young woman raised her face and looked at Julia, eyes flooding over with tears that dripped down her flushed cheeks, taking a lot of black mascara and thick eyeliner along with it. She looked like a little punk rocker or an addicted Hollywood starlet, take your pick. She had long hair, dyed so dark there was no shine left, just a flat, dull black like a dead man’s eyes. Two nose rings, six earrings in each ear—and as she spoke, Julia caught sight of the silver stud in her tongue. Tattoos decorated her pale skin—not as many as they’d seen on her boss’s body, but her arms were blue with ink in every pattern you could think of. There was even a fancy, curlicue illustration of Roc VanVeter’s name, and his face.
“This sucks so bad. It just sucks, sucks, sucks.”
Okay, it sucks, we get it, Julia thought, in no good mood, but the child obviously didn’t speak standard English. Julia tried to mollify her. “Yes, it sucks big-time. I know it’s shocking to you, but Special Agent Brannock and I are here to find out who did this to Mr. VanVeter.”
The girl wiped tears off her cheeks with impressively ringed fingers. Heavily ringed—twenty, thirty perhaps. “Did they really, like, really, like, cut out his tongue?” Her hands flew up to cover her mouth, and huge blue eyes, outlined in black kohl like Cleopatra’s, stared at Julia in true horror.
Like, yes, Julia thought, but she did feel some sympathy for the girl. She seemed like such a child, and she had to work closely with Roc VanVeter. What could be worse than that? “We really can’t get into the details of the case, Gigi.”
“How old are you, Gigi?” Will asked, obviously riding the same train of thought that Julia was. That was happening more and more lately. Julia wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. The two of them on the same wavelength all the time. He was certainly growing on her, although his Jekyll and Hyde routine was still throwing her for a loop. This morning he was Will Jekyll. Now he was Will Hyde. So there you go.
“Eighteen. I have to be, if I’m gonna work here on the show. I promise, I am.”
That indicated to Julia that Gigi might be sixteen and fudging on her job application. Probably with Roc’s approval and encouragement. Everyone they’d interviewed at the radio station thus far looked like high school sophomores. Certainly no older than Zoe.
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted Mr. VanVeter dead?” Will asked the weeping girl.
Both Julia and Gigi gave him incredulous looks. Gigi answered, “Is that a joke? Everybody hated him except for all of us guys who work here.”
Julia said, “He means is there anyone who threatened him lately or showed up here angry and demanding to be let in. You know, somebody throwing around ugly threats.”
“Jeez, that happens near, like, every day. But we got big guys out in the lobby that keep ’em out. You know, like, security guys.”
“But Roc didn’t have a personal bodyguard?” Will asked.
“Yeah, he did. Clark Sorensen. But sometimes he let the guy go home and see his kids. You know, Clark didn’t live at the penthouse. They thought Roc was safe up there.”
“Why?”
“Because there was that big doorman and the elevator. How could any bad guys get past all that?”
How indeed, Julia thought. That was the pertinent question, to be sure. One that she and Will were going to have to figure out ASAP. The doorman hadn’t seen anyone unusual, but there were lots of apartments with lots of visitors and friends and deliverymen coming in and out. The burly doorman had intimated that at busy times, crowds came through the door, more than he could check out. And there were a couple of freight entrances in the back. The perp could have entered anytime that day and hidden out somewhere in the building. Will already had task force members reviewing the security tapes.
Will’s eyes were intent on Gigi’s face. “Have you ever heard of a club called Studio Zero?”
Gigi nodded but looked guilty about it. “Yeah, why?”
“Did Mr. VanVeter frequent the place?”
“What d’you mean, frequent the place? I don’t know what that means.”
Julia took over. She and Will had turned into a tag team worthy of the WWE. “Did he like to go there? You know, get down, party, and all that kind of thing?”
“Sure, it’s an awesome place. That’s where he met me. I did some dancing.”
Will frowned. “You worked at Studio Zero?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kind of dancing?”
“Any kind I wanted. Latin dances—you know, the kind they do on Dancing with the Stars on ABC. You know, like, the ones where those girls really shake their booty and have on those sexy dresses with lots of fringe that shakes around. It’d be bad news, like, if those little straps ever broke.”
“You ever seen any gangbangers down at that club, Gigi?” asked Will.
Gigi immediately lowered her eyes, obviously knowing who she could safely squeal on and who might cut her tongue out if she talked about them.
“Nobody will know you’ve talked to us, Gigi. You can speak freely,” Julia told her. “This is strictly confidential.”
The teenager licked her ruby-red lips and darted her big eyes around, nervous as the devil in a cathedral. “Well, okay, yeah, they like it there. Yeah, they show up all the time. It’s got a lot of salsa dancing, and all that.”
Will said, “Roc enjoyed it?”
“Yeah, he sure did. He knows the guy who owns the place.”
Julia said, “Who’s that?”
“Everybody calls him Hap—you know, short for Happy, ’cause he smiles all the time. He’s got real white teeth. His real first name’s Juan, I think.”
“What’s his last name?”
“DeSoto. Hap DeSoto.”
“Did Ro
c get along with him?”
“Yeah, we used to sit with him in his private booth a lot. It’s up near the stage. They got into it once, though, not too long ago.”
“What happened?”
“Roc was, like, flirting around with one of Hap’s strippers, and Hap didn’t like it.”
Julia said, “Did you ever see Judge Lucien Lockhart there?”
“Yeah, nearly every time. He came with his maid, Maria. I don’t think she liked it, though. She always looked scared of everybody, but there’s never much trouble down there. Hap’s bouncers are tough guys. Like, nobody ever messes with them, not even the Battle Street boys.”
On the way out of Roc VanVeter’s studio, Will stopped. “Looks like Lockhart and VanVeter had a lot more stuff in common than we first thought.”
“Yeah, especially the fact that they’re dead and their tongues have gone bye-bye.”
“Not a good club to be in.”
“The killer’s not waiting long between murders. You think he’ll strike again soon, Will?”
“I think you can count on it. He’s only just begun.”
“Next stop is Studio Zero, I take it, and a talk with its happy little owner.”
“You got it.”
Chapter 14
The killer sat at his table watching the taped news broadcast on his smart phone. They were still calling him the Tongue Slasher. Damn, they just didn’t get it, and neither did the two detectives that the six o’clock news crew had caught standing on VanVeter’s balcony. He took the tongues to send a definite message. He’d spelled it all out in blood, plain as day, given them a clue they couldn’t ignore. It had been easy so far, the murders, the getting to and from the victims’ houses. Now that the media was involved and reveling like jackals in the murder and mayhem, maybe what he’d done to Lockhart and VanVeter would put the fear of God into the other people in his Murder Book. Once everybody understood what he was doing, maybe they’d deem him the Punisher or the Avenger, as comic-book as that sounded. It fit the crime much better; fit what he was trying to do. Everyone on his list deserved to die, to suffer as he had suffered. All the people named in his book of shame would soon join his first two victims burning in hell. On the smart phone’s screen, they were now showing VanVeter’s body where it dangled by the neck on his fancy balcony. The cameraman in the helicopter zoomed in on the shock jock’s face, on the rivulets of blood covering his vulgarly tattooed chest. The male detective was waving them off, holding up his TBI badge. The female detective had disappeared inside, and he wondered if they had any inkling who had done the crime, and why. He doubted it, but they needed to know why, needed to figure out what VanVeter and Lockhart had done to deserve to die. They needed to make sure the whole world knew. Maybe he had to help them out. Virtually spell out everything for them in black-and-white.
Don't Say a Word Page 19
