“Three murders,” Dan repeated. “That’s…not nothing, I guess. Do you think she was on the level?”
I thought about it. “I think so,” I said. “She was legitimately frightened. It would be a weird story to have just made up. And she said…”
“What?”
“She said one of the murders was wrong. Not like a person says all murders are wrong. There was something wrong about that one specifically.”
“Wrong? What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.” And if that had rung a bell with Dan, he’d done a masterful job keeping it out of his voice. I happened to know he was terrible at that, so I doubted it. “Does it mean anything to you? Do you have three unsolved murders that have just been driving you guys nuts?”
“I don’t have a triple,” Dan said. “Not even a double. You’d have seen that in the news. Three connected murders? No. The only unsolved serial case is…well, yours.”
That was more or less what I’d thought. “Fulton and Harrison were going to talk to a possible witness,” I said. “A homeless guy. I saw him with a couple patrol cops. Did they get anything?”
“Nevada,” Dan said. He paused. “You understand this isn’t your investigation, right?”
“She was my informant. I have an interest.”
“You’re a civilian. She was someone you knew in a previous life. Fulton and Harrison have the case. Let them do their jobs.”
There was a fine line I was walking on now. The fight we’d been having earlier had ended. If I started it up again it was going to make doing the things I needed to do a great deal harder. But I wanted to fight. I needed the release right now. It wouldn’t be smart, but…
“Tell me something, Dan. Krystal was a homeless meth addict. She had connections to nobody. How big a priority is solving this going to be for you?”
I heard him exhale. “That isn’t fair, Nevada. You know I take this seriously.”
“Of course you do. But a week will go by and Fulton and Harrison will catch another case. And another one. Tell me seriously how big a priority this is.”
“Do you want to come in here and get your gun and your badge?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. So until you do, how about you don’t fucking tell me how to do my job?” He hung up on me.
I’d seen the line and I’d walked right over it. Still, it could have gone a great deal more badly than it had. He’d forgive me in a day or two. Poor Dan. He’d had to forgive me quite a lot over the years.
I was at a loss for what to do next. Until Abercrombie finished breaking into Krystal’s phone I was short on leads to follow. I couldn’t go back to her house and do a more thorough search. The cops would still be there, and while any cop in San Diego would give my bad behavior a certain leeway, it didn’t extend to tearing apart crime scenes. And that went double now that Dan knew I wasn’t willing to just sit back on this one. I’d taken it too personally. I knew I shouldn’t have. But knowing I shouldn’t do something had never stopped me from doing it before.
And then there was the guilt I had to deal with. I wasn’t going to be sleeping much unless I did something.
Krystal couldn’t have had much of a social life with the condition she’d been in, and even if she had, I didn’t know who to talk to. Her drug dealers? I doubted they advertised. Addicts often had other addicts they used with, but I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go looking for them, either.
I did know one place she’d been recently, though. The food bank where she’d been getting her canned chili and vegetables.
I pulled up the photos I’d taken on my phone and found the one of the food bank’s box. I called the number and a recorded message told me that they were open from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. Was that normal? A food bank was like a grocery store, wasn’t it? But one where you didn’t pay for anything? Come to think of it, that didn’t make a great deal of sense. I’d never actually been inside one, and there was a good chance I was wrong. Even if I wasn’t, they had to run on donations, so they probably couldn’t pay staff to work longer shifts. I’d go there in the morning and ask if anyone had seen Krystal. And maybe someone could tell me if her murder had been a hot topic of conversation in the checkout lines.
Dusk was coming on quickly now and I’d hit a wall. I thought about calling Molly and asking if she had time to spar as an excuse to make conversation, but my ankle quickly reminded me that I wouldn’t be practicing karate for a while. If I didn’t get some rest, I might have to give up walking entirely. Feeling frustrated, I made the drive home and hobbled inside, my ankle burning like fire now. Once the security system was good to go I made a slow beeline for the kitchen and took another three Advil.
I cast one glance at the cupboard where my vodka was stashed away. That would take care of the pain in a hurry. It was tempting. But it also would have been the beginning of the end for me. I wasn’t ready to take that step yet. Maybe someday, but not yet. I had a murder to solve. And beyond that, my dance with the Laughing Man wasn’t over yet. I still wanted to see that through before my old friend Death paid me his last visit.
I put the thought of vodka out of my head and ordered a pizza, instead. It didn’t do anything for the pain, but it did manage to make me sleepy. When I was done eating I lay down on my air mattress and shut my eyes. Taking my weight off my ankle was a blessing. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get up again.
Chapter 7
I woke up the next morning with my ankle aching, but nowhere near as badly as it had been the night before. I’d really overdone it with all the walking around yesterday. Not that I’d done a great deal of walking around, but it certainly had been enough.
I considered unwrapping it to take another look at the bruising, but decided the risk of having it swell up was too great. If that happened and I couldn’t rewrap it properly, I wasn’t going to be getting around at all today.
A quick examination of my face in the bathroom mirror showed better results. The stitches were holding fine, and I wasn’t entirely sure they’d really been necessary in the first place. My face felt tight, like a puppeteer had attached strings to it and was pulling on them. I poked one of the gashes with my fingers. It hurt, but only when I messed with it. The itching could be bothersome, though. I’d been scratching them more than I probably should. I was supposed to go see the doctor in a few days to get the stitches out, but I hadn’t made a decision on whether I would or not. If everything kept healing the way it was supposed to, I might just get something sharp and cut them out myself. It would save me the trouble of going to see someone. And it would let me avoid the test results I was dreading for a while longer.
After downing a few Advil I checked my phone for messages. There were none. Abercrombie must not have anything yet, then. That was annoying, but not entirely unexpected. I had no idea how long it took to crack cell phone passwords, and I already knew he was focused on other things, too. I wondered what his parents were like. I wondered what Abercrombie’s real name was, for that matter. It wouldn’t have been terribly difficult to figure out, given that I had been a reasonably good detective in my former career. But I didn’t really want to know, and it was better for everyone that I didn’t. Nothing he and his hacker compatriots did for me was legal. Most of it would probably get a person a nice long stay in a federal prison. I could say under oath that I had no idea who he was, if I ever needed to, and in a way I’d actually be telling the truth. I liked it that way. So did he, I was sure.
I spent a few minutes pacing around my living room to make sure my ankle was going to hold up. It seemed like it would. For a while, anyway. Jogging was out of the question, though. It was a good thing I never jogged.
I’d have preferred to spend the day inside, but I wanted to talk to someone at the food bank, and I wasn’t sure I could describe Krystal well enough to distinguish her from any of their other more desperate clientele over the telephone. I had the photo of her on my cell phone that I could show to people, t
hough. I didn’t much like the thought of doing that, but I couldn’t think of anything else.
It was just past 10:30 now. I’d head out shortly, but I wanted to do something else, first. Something I should have done a long time ago. I took my phone and called Sarah’s extension at the SDPD. She answered on the first ring, her voice dull and lifeless. “Sarah Winters.” I’d never heard that tone out of her before, and I didn’t like it.
“Jesus,” I said. “Are you all right?”
It took her a minute to place my voice. “Oh. Nevada,” she said. She was silent for a moment. “What’s going on?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “I heard you maybe weren’t so good. I guess I was right.”
“I’m bored,” she said. “Dan won’t let me off the desk until he’s sure I’m not dangerous. Asshole.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard her speak badly about him. It wasn’t a good sign. I wanted to say something reassuring, or maybe even hopeful, but that was a language I wasn’t really familiar with. “You’ll be back out there soon,” I said. It didn’t sound convincing at all.
“Sure.”
I had no idea where to go with this. Why had I even tried? “Sarah…” I hesitated. Was this the right path to go down? “Nothing that happened was your fault. You understand that, right? You can’t beat yourself up over it.”
“I already have a therapist, Nevada.” Her voice was cold. “I’m not getting into this with you.”
“Well, if you ever want to talk…”
“I don’t.”
“I’m just saying I’ve been through a lot, you know? Odds are I can relate to what you’re going through.”
“I just said I don’t want to talk, Nevada. Was there anything else?”
This wasn’t the Sarah I knew at all, but I was out of things to say. I really was a shit friend. Relationships of any kind had never been my strong suit. Besides, I probably needed to get back into therapy, myself. “I won’t bother you about it,” I said. “But if you’re as bored as I think you probably are, I’ve got something that might help with that.”
Sarah didn’t say anything for a long moment and I wondered if she was angry with me. She had a right to be, I supposed. A better person than me would have touched base with her a lot earlier. “All right,” she finally said. “What the hell? Amuse me.”
Nothing I had to say was amusing, but I explained the situation with Krystal, and that she’d claimed to have information about three murders. Sarah thought about it for a while. “Dan was telling the truth,” she said. “We don’t have an unsolved triple. I can’t think of a double we haven’t put to bed, either. Did it sound like a serial?”
“I’d have to assume you guys would have picked up on some commonality,” I said. “Same weapon, same method, same victim profile, same…something.”
“Not on our radar,” Sarah said. “There are plenty of unsolveds, though. There always are.”
“Do you think you could find three for me that do have something in common? Anything?”
“I don’t know, Nevada. There are a lot of variables to look at. Besides race, gender, backgrounds…I could probably think of fifty more.”
“Do you have anything better to do?”
She paused and I heard what might have been a grunt. “Well, I’ve got to finish filing my nails, and then I’ll probably need another coffee. All right, fine. Why not? I’ll see if I can dig something up.”
“I appreciate it.”
“This informant of yours…did you know her well?”
“Not really. I hadn’t even thought about her in years. Why?”
“It’s just…you seem to be taking it personally, Nevada. If she was just someone you used to know, I’m wondering why.”
With almost any other person I’d have told them to mind their damn business. But this was different. “Isn’t that what therapy is for, Sarah?”
She chuckled. “Yeah.”
“I’ll tell you this anyway. Krystal was trying to find me for…I don’t know how long. If I’d called her back right away, she’d be alive. If I hadn’t…” I felt a lump in my throat and made myself swallow it down. “If I hadn’t thought she might be setting me up and met her at her house instead of insisting it be in a public place, she’d be alive. If I’d gone looking for her maybe fifteen minutes earlier than I did, she’d be alive. I’d have been there when the killer came for her and I’d have blown her head off.” Sarah didn’t say anything. “Krystal’s dead because of shit I didn’t do, Sarah. So I am taking it personally, yeah.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “I guess I can understand that.”
“Like I said, if you ever want to talk. You aren’t the only person that lives with some shit, Sarah. But that’s all I’ll say about it right now.”
She went quiet again, and then she simply said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll get on this as soon as I can. I can’t make any promises about time.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I appreciate you doing anything. I don’t think I’m going to get much out of anybody else in the department.”
“You aren’t.”
That had sounded pretty definite. “Oh?”
“Dan’s already told everyone you might be nosing around. If you do, we’re supposed to tell him immediately so he can…I don’t know. Scold you?”
I couldn’t honestly have said I was surprised. “But you won’t tell him?”
“Really, Nevada? I couldn’t give a shit. I’ll be in touch.” And then she hung up on me.
I spent the next ten minutes thinking about what had just happened. Dan’s concerns about Sarah hadn’t been unfounded. She sounded entirely too much like me. That wasn’t a good thing. It had the potential to be very, very bad.
But I had no idea what to do about it.
Chapter 8
I decided to head over to the food bank where Krystal had been picking up her groceries. It wasn’t far from the place where she’d been squatting. I was surprised to see that it was located in a small strip mall, though. I’d imagined a larger building. When you think of a grocery store, you think of a place significantly bigger than the two tiny Mexican restaurants that sat in either side of it. The food bank couldn’t have been bigger than either of them.
The inside of the place was even more baffling. I’d expected aisles filled with canned goods, but instead all I saw was a single counter and a door that led into the back. That couldn’t possibly be for customers to go through, could it? Did they pick out groceries back there?
A tall young man with long dark hair in a ponytail smiled at me when I stepped through the door. He had a nametag that said “Rick” and a waxed handlebar moustache that wasn’t doing his face any favors. “Welcome,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
I looked around. There were a few generic inspirational posters on the walls that seemed to promise that things would get better. I almost expected to see one with a cat clinging to a branch with a caption that read “Hang in There.” I didn’t. I actually hadn’t seen that poster in years. Did they still print them? Probably. People loved cats and hanging in there.
“I’m not sure I’m in the right place, honestly,” I said. “This is the food bank?” They’d had a sign out front that said it was, but nothing about this place seemed right to me.
“It is.” He nodded. “You look like you might need this, though.” His hand disappeared underneath the counter and my own twitched in the direction of my shoulder holster, but I managed to keep myself from drawing on him. His hand came up with a business card that he offered to me.
I stepped forward to take it and looked it over. It had the name and address of a local women’s shelter. “It’s a safe place,” he said. “Their security is the best. If anyone calls asking if you’re there, they’ll say they never heard of you.”
What in the world was going on? It took me a minute to figure out, and then it hit me. My face. I didn’t much care ab
out my appearance, but I must have looked like I’d been in a hell of a fight to anyone that saw me. “No,” I said. “This isn’t…” I pointed at my stitches. “I jumped through a window.”
His eyes widened slightly. “You must have been pretty desperate to get away,” he said. His sympathetic look was starting to get on my nerves. “Do you want me to call you a cab? It’s on us. Don’t worry about the money. We can write it off.”
“Actually, he was the one trying to get away,” I said. “Usually I’m the one people are running from.” That had sounded weird. I shook my head. “Let’s try that again. My name is Nevada James. I used to be a cop.”
“Oh!” Now his eyes widened even more. Great. “I’ve read all about you,” he said. “Well, what can I do for you, Ms. James?”
We were finally getting somewhere. “I’m still not sure I’m in the right place,” I said. “Isn’t this supposed to be a food bank?”
“Yes.” He nodded eagerly.
“So…” I looked around. “Where’s all the food?”
He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. “I don’t understand.”
“Do I not know what a food bank is?” I asked. “Hungry people come in here, they pick out some food, and they go home and eat it. Is that wrong?”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Now I get it. You were expecting this to be like a Costco or something.”
“I guess. Maybe not that big.”
“Well, there is a warehouse just behind me in the back, but it’s pretty small. Mostly what we do here is take donations.”
“People bring you food?”
“That’s right. Whatever we get that can be used we distribute to shelters, soup kitchens, that kind of thing.”
“So you don’t really do retail here.”
“No.”
“I’ve seen a box with this place’s name on it. What would have been in it if it wasn’t food?”
He laughed. “I’m sure it was food. If someone comes in hungry, we give them a box with whatever we have on hand. Technically you can only get one once a month, but…” He gave me a conspiratorial look. “We’re not going to send people away hungry. But we also refer them to services nearby. For people needing a meal, it’s the soup kitchen over on Lemon. They do lunch and dinner five days a week.”
Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) Page 6
