by G. M. Ford
“What color?”
“White…plastic, I think.”
Corso felt a shiver run down his spine. “May I?” he asked.
She pulled the strap from her neck, looped it over Corso’s head, and then handed the camera to him. He aimed the camera at the far side of the roof and fiddled with the focus, then got to his knees, leaned over the side of the building, and trained the lens on the Dumpster below. Focused again. Corso gulped air and returned to a sitting position. “Did you see it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Oh yeah,” he whispered. “I saw it all right.”
“What is it?”
“An ear tag,” he said. “Ovine. Sheep.”
“What’s that mean?”
He told her about the holdback of the ear-tag evidence.
“It means they’ve got more Trashman murders,” Corso said. “That’s why everybody’s panties are in such a wad. They’ve got a guy on death row, about to meet his maker, and all of a sudden, they’ve got new murders with the same MO.”
“So…then…this can’t be the first new one.”
“Exactly,” Corso said. “They’ve been keeping the new killings from the public. And then Leanne Samples shows up with a new story, which, as if it’s not bad enough news in its own right, also threatens the official cover-up of the new murders.”
Corso rubbed his hands together. “Take pictures,” he whispered. “Everything.” She rose to her knees and began snapping pictures. Corso pulled out his notebook and began to scribble. 11:20, Densmore calls Abbott. He checked his watch and made more notes. Dougherty plopped back down onto the roof.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Corso said.
She reached for the lens cap on the roof edge but missed, sending the black plastic disk spinning out into space. Corso got to his knees. Watched as the disk floated on the breeze and finally landed on the stiff, directly in front of Dr. Fran Abbott. She looked straight up and made eye contact with Corso. In slow motion, her mouth formed a circle.
She pointed upward with a gloved hand. “Ooooooo,” she wailed.
Corso sat back down on the roof. Looked over at Dougherty. A series of shouts and the slapping sound of running feet split the air.
“Oops,” she whispered.
Corso gave it a minute, then got to his feet and ambled over to the fire escape. Half a dozen uniformed cops were clustered at the bottom.
“You get your ass down here, right now,” one of them hollered. A chorus of threats and remonstrations followed.
Corso stepped back from the edge. “We might as well make it easy on them,” he said to Dougherty. She shook her head. “I need two minutes,” she said. “You don’t look back this way, and you don’t let them up here for at least two minutes.”
Corso opened his mouth, but she shouted him down. “Just do it,” she yelled.
The fire escape began to vibrate. Corso walked over and looked down. Two-tone brown uniform. A King County mountie with a red face had dragged his beer gut as far as the first landing. He shook his fist at Corso.
“Don’t make me come up there,” he shouted.
Corso took hold of the uppermost section of fire escape and pushed. The whole thing moved three feet from the supporting wall and waved unsteadily in the breeze before banging back into the bricks. The cop’s face went from beet red to stark white. He began to crawl down backward, showing Corso his palms whenever possible.
“This is awful dangerous, fellas,” Corso shouted. “You need to be real careful here. Somebody could get seriously hurt.”
He started to turn back toward Dougherty. “Not yet!” she whispered.
Densmore wore the same blue suit he’d worn the other day. He had his gun in one hand and the lens cap in the other.
His eyes dilated at the sight of Corso. “You!” he said.
Corso waved toodles with his fingers. “Hi, Andy,” he said.
“You son of a bitch. Your ass is mine,” he snarled. “I want that camera, and I want you down here right now,” he yelled. “Let’s go, asshole.”
Corso smiled. “That the only suit you own?” he asked.
Behind him, he could hear the clicking of the camera and the sounds of Dougherty moving across the roof. Below, Densmore stuck the automatic back in his belt holster, grabbed the lowest rung of the ladder, and started up.
“Watch out for the flower,” Corso shouted when Densmore reached the first landing. In a show of disdain, Densmore used his foot to sweep the geranium over the edge, scattering the uniforms below. Dougherty appeared at Corso’s side.
Densmore had a rhythm going. He jogged up the ladder, crossed the second landing, and started up the final pitch. It was when he reached for the third landing with his left hand that things went terribly awry.
Instead of the metal support, his grasping fingers caught the edge of the nearest cat box, catapulting it completely up and over, sending the collected waste directly down into his upturned face. Instantly, the air was alive with the smell. Dougherty covered her nose and mouth with her hands. Corso winced and stepped back a pace.
Blind now, soaked and choking, Densmore groped upward for purchase, only to have his clawing hands dislodge the remaining cat box, pulling it over the edge, again raining tea and cat crumpets down upon his head. The smell was, by now, nearly unbearable. Densmore began to gag. He slid down the ladder to the second landing. Fell to his knees and dry-heaved a half dozen times before retreating downward. Looking for help that wasn’t on the way. Down below, the posse had fanned out. Apparently, as far as local law enforcement was concerned, while bullets were to be considered an everyday occupational hazard, cat shit was way beyond the call of duty.
Corso pulled his cell phone from an inside jacket pocket. Pushed buttons until he found her private number. Auto-dialed. She answered on the third ring. “Yes?”
“It’s Corso,” he said. “Miss Dougherty and I are about to be arrested.”
“Pray tell, what for?”
He gave her the Reader’s Digest version. A hundred words or less. Heard Mrs. V.’s breathing stop when he told her about the new killing.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” she said and hung up.
Corso pocketed the phone and turned to Dougherty. “You ever been to jail?”
“No,” she said.
Corso had a sudden image of Leanne Samples.
“Mama says there’s a first time for everything,” he said.
Chapter 17
Thursday, September 20
2:35 P.M. Day 4 of 6
“You stink,” she said sullenly.
“You’re not exactly springtime fresh yourself,” Corso countered.
Densmore’s drenching had left the fire escape slick and slimy. Despite their daintiest efforts, Corso and Dougherty had picked up a hint of eau de Garfield as they’d climbed down into the waiting arms of the law.
“Why haven’t they put us in the regular jail yet?”
Good question. They’d been locked in a windowless underground office in the King County jail for what Corso figured was the better part of two hours. No prints taken. No mugs shot. Just a wooden bench to share and a pair of his and hers jailers stationed outside the door in case either of them needed to take a leak.
“I don’t think they want us in with the regular jail population,” Corso said. “They’re probably worried we’ll start running our mouths about what we saw today.”
Corso checked his watch, and, for the umpteenth time, found it gone. Along with his wallet, his cell phone, the camera, the film, and everything else that was loose on either of them. Strip-searched. Just short of the rubber-glove routine. Corso hadn’t asked. He assumed Dougherty’d gotten the same treatment. Probably why she’d been so quiet. He looked at his wrist again. Still gone. Hadda be about two in the afternoon, he figured.
He heard voices in the hall. The door opened. Lieutenant Donald and another cop entered the room. The second man’s gold shield hung from his suit-jacket pocket. He had pale blu
e eyes, wiry red hair, and a humongous cold sore decorating his lower lip. Donald started to close the door behind them, until his nose twitched a couple of times, like a bunny, and he decided to leave it open. He looked at Corso.
“You got some knack for making enemies, man,” Donald said.
“It’s a calling,” Corso said.
“You two better stay the hell away from Densmore,” the other guy said, shaking his head. “On good days, he’s a pain in the ass. After this…” He let it hang.
“This is Sergeant Wald.” Nods were exchanged all around.
Donald leaned against the doorjamb. “They took Densmore up to Harborview.”
“They’re afraid he might have swallowed some of it,” Wald said.
Corso held up both hands. “We had nothing to do with it. He’s the one brought the shit down upon himself.”
“To coin a phrase,” Wald said with a wink.
Donald shook his head sadly. “It’s all over the precincts. They’re calling him Felix. You know, like the cartoon cat.”
“Never gonna live it down,” Wald said.
“How many new killings have you got?” Corso asked.
The cops lobbed a look back and forth. Corso pushed.
“If you’ll forgive me the phrase, fellas, the cat’s already out of the bag.”
Donald cocked his head, as if to say, What the hell. “This was the second.”
“Started about two weeks ago,” Wald added.
“Both of them ear-tagged?”
Another look passed between the cops. “Come on,” Donald said, gesturing toward the open door. “You’re wanted upstairs.”
“The gods have assembled,” Wald added.
Dougherty got to her feet and followed Donald out the door. Wald stopped, blocking the doorway, and turned back toward Corso. The cold sore glistened with some sort of yellow salve.
“How come on a homicide team with two sergeants and a lieutenant, the lieutenant’s not the three?” Corso asked.
“Densmore’s a desk jockey from Central. He’s our political correctness officer. He’s here to make sure SPD gets the glory when we catch the guy. And Chucky…” Wald snorted. “Chucky’s got no major-crimes experience at all. You don’t count the Samples girl throwing herself on the hood of his patrol car, I’m not even sure he owns a felony collar.”
“Then why have him on the team?”
“Chief says it’s as a liaison. Between the old murders and the new cases.”
“What’s everybody else say?”
Wald checked the hall. “Everybody else says Chucky is the chief’s boy. Say Kesey can’t make him captain without he has some high-profile major-crimes time. So, we get him on the team.”
“What’s that leave you to do?”
“Catch the perp,” Wald said with a grimace.
Before Corso could reply, Wald asked, “It true what the matrons say?”
“What’s that?”
“That Big Mamma there is tattooed all over?”
Corso felt blood moving to his cheeks. He kept his voice level.
“Why don’t you ask her for a little peek?”
He nodded at Dougherty and Donald disappearing down the hallway. “Can’t nobody compete with Chucky for the ladies,” he said with a smirk. “Say she’s got some pretty weird stuff all over her.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Corso said.
“Stuff most people wouldn’t want on them.”
“Sounds to me like one of your bull dykes is dreaming.”
“Hmmm,” was his only reply.
Corso stepped past him in the doorway and headed down the hall. Donald was showing Dougherty his teeth and holding the elevator door open. Going up. Third floor. Office of the chief of police. At the far end of the hall, Chief Kesey, the mayor, Marvin Hale the district attorney, and Dorothy Sheridan were huddled together like refugees.
Through the wavy glass, Corso could make out Mrs. V.’s profile. Donald opened the door without knocking, stepped aside, and ushered them in. Mrs. V. sat at the far end with Dan Beardsley close at her right hand. Bennett Hawes paced the narrow space behind them.
Corso and Dougherty headed for the friendly end of the table as Wald closed the door. “Are we under arrest?” Corso demanded.
“No,” Beardsley said.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
“There have been developments,” Mrs V. said. She looked to the attorney.
“Miss Samples faltered rather badly, I’m afraid,” he said.
Corso marinated the idea. “You mean she changed her story again?”
“And again and again and again,” Beardsley recited. “Miss Samples’s story depended entirely on who was asking the questions and in what tone of voice.”
“What am I missing here? Isn’t that what you were onboard for—to keep the cops from badgering her?”
Beardsley raised his porcine snout, as if sniffing the air. “I assure you, Mr. Corso,” he said with great deliberation, “the young lady did not require coercion. She has, how shall I say…a terrific urge to please, which, when combined with difficulty recalling what she said last, makes for quite an interesting witness. Short of invoking her Fifth Amendment rights, I was completely helpless.”
The door swung open and Hizhonor marched in. Followed by the chief, the DA, and the Sheridan woman. Beardsley waited for the scuffing of chairs to subside and said, “Mr. Corso has inquired as to whether or not he and Miss Dougherty are under arrest.”
“No,” said the DA.
“That could damn well change,” Chief Kesey said quickly.
“Now, Ben,” the mayor chided.
Beardsley made a disgusted face. “Don’t be ridiculous. You have neither a complainant for trespassing nor a weapon for assault.” The lawyer made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Unless, of course, it is your intention to issue an assault indictment listing ‘feline bowel effluent’ as the weapon.” Mrs. V. winced at the words.
“Neither of them is under arrest,” the district attorney said emphatically. Marvin Hale was an athletic forty-five. Billiard-ball bald. Prone to pipes and sport jackets with elbow patches. “We’re here in the spirit of cooperation,” he said soothingly.
The chief looked like he was going to puke.
“Well, then…in the spirit of cooperation,” Corso said, “Miss Dougherty and I want to leave. We’ve got a story to put together.”
A ripple moved through the crowd, like “the wave” at the Kingdome.
Natalie Van Der Hoven sat forward in her chair. “These gentlemen feel strongly that it is our civic duty not to go to print with the story at this time.”
“Time?” Corso sneered. “Time is exactly what Walter Leroy doesn’t have.” He checked his watch. “According to my watch, he’s two days from the great beyond.”
“You let us worry about Himes,” Kesey snapped.
Corso laughed. “Oh yeah, if I were old Walter, you’d be just the bunch I’d want looking out for my well-being.”
“After her performance today, the Samples woman can hardly be considered a credible witness,” Kesey said.
“As I recall, she was considered credible enough when she was your witness,” Corso said.
Suddenly the air was filled with threats and denials. Hawes was yelling at the chief, who’d come up out of his chair and was stabbing the air with a finger. Dan Beardsley and Marvin Hale were trading snappy repartee in angry voices. Hizhonor was playing the peacemaker. The Sheridan woman rubbed her temples and stared disconsolately off into space. Meg Dougherty stood in the corner, her hands under her arms, her head swiveling back and forth as if she were watching a tennis match.
“Why in hell didn’t you release Himes two weeks ago when the first new body turned up?”
“Because, Mr. Corso, we don’t, for a second, believe the killings are related,” Kesey said.
Corso was incredulous. “The body I just saw had a tag on her ear.”
A knowing look passed among t
he powers-that-be.
“Different tags,” the DA said. “Not from the same batch. The tags found in the latest victims are twenty years newer than those used in ninety-eight.”
“MO’s not the same either,” the chief added. “The new murders have a significantly higher level of violence than the old.”
Corso was taken aback. “So you guys are assuming what?”
The chief took over. “We’re investigating three angles. I personally think we’ve got a copycat killer. Somebody who got all excited by the sensational crap he’s read in the papers over the past couple of weeks and has decided he wants a little attention too.”
“What else?” Corso prodded.
“The possibility that Himes has an accomplice. Somebody who’s trying to muddy the waters. Trying to force at least a stay of execution.”
“And?”
“We’re also looking into some of the more radical members of the anti-capital punishment movement.”
“Anti-capital punishment types are killing people?” Mrs. V. scoffed. “Sounds all rather self-defeating to me.”
“Unlike newspapers,” the chief said, “we have to do our homework before opening our mouths.”
The DA leaned across the table. “Now, now. Let’s see if we can’t fix the problem rather than the blame.” His green eyes took in the crowd at the other end of the table. He stopped and let it sink in. “Other than that unfortunate young woman who can’t make up her mind whether or not she was raped or by whom…do you have anything?”
The room went silent. “Because”—the DA continued—“until and unless somebody shows us one scrap of hard evidence that the original eight murders were not the work of Walter Leroy Himes, we are going to continue to assume his guilt.”
“Himes was convicted by a jury of his peers,” the mayor added. “He’s had three and a half years and several million dollars’ worth of appeals.”
“You don’t think any of this constitutes reasonable doubt?” Corso asked. He could feel himself grasping for straws. “How would an activist or a copycat know about the ear tags?”
