by J. A. Kerley
It had been a standard night, Mr Car Salesman trying to shape Sissy into configurations he’d seen in porn vids, getting a cramp in his leg at one point, howling and limping across the floor, his pink dick flapping pathetically between his thighs. He’d gotten progressively drunker, passing out at four in the morning. Sissy had slept until ten – the guy a beached whale drooling on the carpet – then called room service for coffee, juice and a fruit plate. He’d paid to have her stay until noon, but snored through what he’d expected would be breakfast in bed, so to speak.
As she waved down a taxi, Sissy winced at a memory, the john patting her hair like she was a show poodle and babbling that she was the mos’ beautiful woman he’d ever seen and how he’d like to take her home and show her off to everyone in Kokomo or wherever.
Sissy had started life in her own Kokomo, a tiny town in rural northwestern Ohio, aptly named Hicksville, and wasn’t going back. It had been a hard climb, chased around the house by her uncle – and occasionally caught – starting when she was fourteen, seduced by a music teacher when she was sixteen, a next-door neighbor at seventeen, passed around by a succession of boyfriends, mostly college types, who promised the world and married women who didn’t talk with a twang and live in a trailer park.
Sissy learned two things from her early life: One, men want one thing, and two, men want one thing only.
She’d ditched Hicksville at nineteen, trading a meth head mother and winters so cold they broke pipes under the trailer for the bright-future sunshine of Florida. There had been only one problem: Sissy arrived on the Trailways bus with one-hundred-seventy-seven dollars in her backpack, tucked within the make-up and the few clothes she could fit in the pack.
She found the cheapest motel in the Orlando area, hoping to work at Disney World, which she’d heard hired attractive young people to perform for tourists. Only one problem: the goddamn place wasn’t hiring.
She started looking south. Then, the ad … in the local paper, small and headlined, CHARACTER ACTORS NEEDED. It promised a good steady job, good money, even a place to live. All you needed was to be “responsible, energetic, outgoing and …”
And blah, blah, blah, Sissy thought. What a fucking bust that turned out to be, at least as far as acting. After a strange interview she’d been made an immediate manager and given special duties, finding that beneath all the promises and glittery up-top bullshit it was just another Hicksville, dark and ugly and full of streets that led nowhere. But she had a feel for the work and the money was good, so she stayed a year before getting bored and bolting south to Miami. She’d intended to sign with an escort service, but fucked up and immediately acquired a heroin habit which detoured her career to a massage parlor, cranking out handjobs like Dunkin’ cranked out donuts.
She fell to the bottom, again. Hicksville with hand towels.
Then the cops raided the place and hauled off all the illegals, leaving only one US citizen: Sissy. She’d called a bail bondsman, got a hard-talking dyke named Michaela. With a bit of subtle encouragement, Mick got the drools for Sissy and ended up paying the percentage and all court costs, then sat up three days while Sissy moaned and puked and trembled the H from her system.
Another lesson learned: Fuck with drugs and they’ll fuck you back harder.
Sissy stayed clean and started exercising, spurred on by Mick, who did a minimum ten hard hours a week at a health club and fronted Sissy the membership fee.
Sissy 2.0 arrived. With Mick’s reluctant help – “This is what I’m gonna do, Mick, you got that? Help me or get the hell out of my way” – she finally signed with a low-rent escort service and began doing outcalls at fifty bucks an hour, half going to the service. She found a better service, moved up, and began trolling the street in her own time, targeting horny johns before they could call a service.
The money was starting to roll in.
Which was why Sissy didn’t much care when the cab-fare was thirty and she tipped the guy ten … Sissy Carol Sparks had figured out how the game worked.
Sissy exited the cab and smiled at her apartment building, a ten-unit rehab in a gentrifying neighborhood, her neighbors young professionals who thought the beautiful young woman in 22-A was a medical-equipment salesperson who took a shitload of overnight sales trips. The men initially buzzed at her like bees, but Sissy bought a flashy diamelle engagement ring to back the story of an engagement to a Delta pilot, the marriage at some nebulous point in the future.
All worked out.
Sissy crossed to her unit to shower the stink from her skin, hit the club for a workout, then take a facial and manicure. She’d had gigs for four days in a row – the convention – and was looking forward to curling up in a terry robe and watching West Wing episodes on Netflix … the call girl in that show made three grand a night!
Something to aspire to.
A flash of motion caught Sissy’s eye and she turned to a white van parked on the street, eyes reflected in the large side mirror, gray eyes tracking her every step across the pavement. Normally she would have put a little more sashay in the trim rear to give some poor working stiff a couple seconds of the show. She was, after all, Sissy Carol Sparks, moving up and moving fast.
But this guy was scary, his eyes horny-hot, sure … but angry at the same time. And why was the looney fuck holding his shirt open to show some purple tattoo or whatever? Her internal alarms went off and Sissy nearly ran the last few feet to her door.
30
Miami-Dade PD dispatcher Talia Ocales sat in her semicircular workstation surrounded by monitors and an impressive array of technology. A light flashed on her board and she shifted the headpiece to take a fast sip of coffee, then flicked a switch.
“This is 911,” she said, the address registering on one of her monitors. “What is the nature of your problem?”
“I want to report a freak scoping out the neighborhood. He’s sitting in some piece-a-shit van, staring at women. He’s got some weird-ass tat or whatever on his chest. He’s got sicko eyes … trust me, I know what they look like.”
“Your name, ma’am?”
“It ain’t important. You’ll send some uniforms to roust this perv, right?”
Tania Ocales assured the caller action would be taken and switched off the call. “Uniforms? Roust this perv?” The caller knew cop jargon. Ocales checked for active units in the area.
“Ten-Charlie-three, you there?”
“Runnin’ south on Northwest Fifth,” returned the voice of Patrol Officer Jason Roberts. “Just passed Robert E. Lee Park.”
“Got a complaint about a suspicious individual …” Ocales told him the address.
“Anything more to go on?” Roberts said.
“Old van. Creepy-looking guy.”
A chuckle. “That narrows it down. On the way.”
Frisco Dredd started the van. The engine turned over, coughed, died. He pumped the gas and fired it up again, pulling from the curb when he heard the whoop of a siren and saw flashing blue in his rear-view. His fingers rebuttoned the front of his shirt. Jesus didn’t need to see this meaningless distraction.
The cop came to the door, a younger guy wearing one of those cop smiles that ain’t a smile, eyes like they was weighing you.
“Good day, sir. May I see your license and registration?”
Dredd’s hands moved slowly because cops got testy when you moved too fast. “I just fixed that taillight. I hope it ain’t broke again.”
The cop studied the papers. “We had a call about someone sitting here for a while. Someone looking a bit out of place.”
Dredd laughed and slapped his knee. “I guess that’d be me, officer. There’s so many good-looking young folks around here an ugly ol’ mug like mine prob’ly seems way out of place.”
The cop handed back the papers. “What brings you here, Mr Dredd?”
“I’m just a guy looking for work, passing out my handbills.” Dredd reached to a rubber-banded stack of copies on the dashboard. “Here … mebbe you
could use some fix-up around your place. I’m really good. Bonded, too.”
The cop studied the flyer: A-1 Handyman Services, said the banner, underscored by a listing of services from light carpentry to painting to plumbing.
“It seems you’ve been here a while, Mr Dredd. Take that long to hang a few fliers?”
“I passed out some handbills and then parked and had lunch. It’s a pretty neighborhood.”
Dredd side-eyed the cop, seeing him spot a crumpled fast-food bag and a bottle of water on the passenger seat. The cop re-studied the flyer.
“Mind if I look inside?”
Dredd felt anger rise in his throat like bile. Whores and infidels roamed the streets, but this Roman had to bother a God-serving Christian. Dredd wanted to rip his shirt open and let Jesus see the injustice.
Instead, he tightened his hands on the wheel. “It’s unlocked.”
The cop opened the side door and saw the two metal toolboxes, a pair of collapsed sawhorses, scraps of wooden molding, cans of paint and drop cloths. He handed back the flyer.
“I suggest you move along, Mr Dredd. Folks get nervous about strangers.”
Dredd willed compliance into his voice. “I surely will, Officer. Bye now.”
Frisco Dredd clenched his teeth in smile and waved as the cop returned to his car. He set the handbills on the dashboard. Having the things made up was real smart, foxy, like keeping tools and stuff in back. He was done here for the most part anyway.
The next time he passed through it would just be for a minute, and he’d be leaving with a wriggling package on the floor of the van, rolled in the first of two wrappings. The first would be a drop cloth or rug, the second would be of the lamb.
It was 4.30 p.m. Belafonte and I were in Forensics for the report on the length of gray-brown fabric she’d found hidden in Kylie’s closet. Dayla Hidalgo, in her thirties with red-accented hair and eyes the size of saucers, set the bagged cloth on the lab table and read the analytics.
“It’s a coarse-weave linen,” Hidalgo said, tapping the bag with a purple fingernail. “Made with short tow fibers, as opposed to longer line fibers.”
“Usage?”
“It’s not dress linen. Being rough, it’s often used for wallcoverings, upholstery and the like. But microanalysis showed a lot of breakage in the fibers, characteristic of repeated bending and washing. We also found two small hairs stuck in the weave. Donkey hairs, oddly enough. This Sandoval woman … she ever work at a zoo?”
I was about to answer when my phone rang – Vince. “We just got a call from an airboat guide service in the Glades, Carson.”
My heart fell. I’d known Vince long enough to read the tone in his voice.
“Don’t say it, Vince.”
He sighed. “Sorry. But it looks like burned woman number three.”
“Gimme the location,” I said, snapping my fingers. Belafonte turned to the sound. I pointed to the phone and mouthed three.
She looked sick.
I put on the screamer and light show and did Daytona 500 driving for twenty minutes, five of them skidding down a single fire lane of sand that wound between canals and swampland. A Seminole guide had been piloting an airboat with four tourists through the sawgrass and lilies when he spied a log-like shape half-submerged in the thick green water. Thinking gator, he’d eased the passengers closer and the visitors now had a memory of Florida they doubtless wished to erase.
We reached the terminus and Deb Clayton waved us to a parking spot beside the medical van. The body had been pulled from the water and now lay on shore wrapped in charred strips and reeking of smoke, burnt meat and accelerant.
Deb walked up. “Three burned women, Carson.”
“I can count, Deb.”
A scene tech waded ashore with an evidence bag in hand. “We just found this. A cross made of scraps of sawgrass.”
“Get photos for size,” Deb said.
The cross measured forty-seven centimeters in length, twenty-nine in width, or about eighteen by twelve inches. It was crude, slender reeds knotted in the center to fashion a lopsided X-shape.
“It was floating,” the tech said. “Over at the far side of the channel.”
“There were no religious symbols at the other scenes,” Belafonte said.
I looked out over the water, dark and slow-moving, dense with bass and sea trout and snook and dozens of other fishable species. I figured the cross had been fashioned by an idle angler, not even a cross, just knotting together reeds for something to do.
“Think it’s significant?” Deb asked.
“Doubtful,” I said. “But toss it in the mix.” I turned to Belafonte. “Let’s haul-ass back to Miami, push through the autopsy on Burning Woman Three, and review the previous scenes. Something’s gotta give, and fast.”
We returned to HQ. Belafonte went to her space and I called Ava. “Another burned woman,” I said, oddly enough in a tired old man’s voice. “Heading to you.”
A pause. “You all right, Carson?”
“We’ve been running full-tilt into walls. Listen, can you possibly—”
“I’ll schedule it ASAP, tomorrow morning.”
I thanked her and crossed the room to fall on the couch and catch my breath. We’d been on the case for four days, but it seemed like weeks. Fourteen-hour days and nightmare-interrupted sleep will do that. I loosened my tie and closed my eyes.
Five minutes later I heard knocking and Belafonte’s voice. “Detective Ryder? Are you in there?”
My eyes opened to note that the hard sunlight over the skyline of downtown Miami had softened into twilight. I checked my watch and discovered what felt like a five-minute respite had been a three-hour nap. My door opened slowly, the entry filling with Belafonte’s anxious face.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you. I’ve been putting some things together in the meeting room and thought you should have a look.”
“Coffee?” I said, not knowing I’d said it until I heard it. Sometimes autopilot does that.
“I just brought up fresh from the shop below. I figured by your snoring you’d appreciate caffeine.”
Shooting a drowsy thumbs-up, I followed Belafonte’s blue slacks and white blouse down the hall, passing Gershwin’s empty office, his bulletin board holding a single 8 × 10 photo: Roberta Menendez. But in the meeting room Belafonte had configured for our case there were three 8 × 10s: Kylie Sandoval, Teresa Mailey and our latest addition, Jane Doe. They were on the bulletin board, case material on a long adjoining table. I couldn’t look in that direction.
“I got you two large bolds with three shots of espresso,” Belafonte said, handing me the blessed cups. I nodded thanks, took a chair, and drank, feeling the magic elixir nudging the cobwebs from my brain. By the time I was opening the second cup, I felt conversant in my native tongue.
“You wanted to show me something?” I said, scanning the twin whiteboards for new additions, seeing only our same old scribbles.
“Not show, tell. While you were resting I started thinking about the odd materials used in burning the victims. I began to Google various sites.”
“And you found …?”
“Nepthai,” she said, holding up her tablet computer.
“An Egyptian queen?”
“The biblical term for Naphtha.”
“Wait … naphtha’s in the Bible?”
“Nepthai was thick water that burned and scholars now think it to be the flammable rock oil called naphtha.”
I put aside my coffee and sat forward; this was getting interesting.
Belafonte wiped to another screen on her tablet and read: “And thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement: and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou hast made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it.”
“Anoint?” I said. “Altar?”
“And you shall say to the people of Israel, ‘This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you.’�
�
It hit me. “Anointing oil is olive oil.”
“Sometimes it was fancified with cinnamon, myrrh and so forth, but olive oil was the most common. Now think about sheep.”
I tented my fingers, sat my chin atop them, and did so for a full minute.
“Sheep and lambs are a common biblical theme, Belafonte. Wool is sheep upholstery.”
“Now consider sacrifice,” Belafonte said, tapping the pad. “Genesis 22:7 to 8 – ‘Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”’ Then Abraham answers, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.’”
I felt my heart rate jump; not the coffee, but hope mingled with anxiety. We had a potential connection: Biblical themes and imagery.
“The cross of grass,” I said. “We have to check the other murder scenes.”
Feeling fresh wind, we pulled photos and reports from our towering files, starting with the scene photos from Kylie Sandoval’s lonely stretch of sand. Detritus found by the techs included a Miller Lite can, a Dasani bottle, the butt from a Salem, a crumpled bag of Doritos and a frayed length of boat rope.
No religious imagery.
“Let’s try the video,” I said.
I put the disk in the computer and watched until the removal of the body, gloved techs moving the charred tube to a gurney. Through the sound of wind we heard a whispered one-two-three and the husk was lifted from the sand to a carry board.
“Back up,” I said, staring at the screen, blinking like it would bring it into better focus. Belafonte replayed the segment until I again yelled stop. I traced my finger across the screen.
“There’s a line here, maybe one intersecting.”
She was dubious. I moved to the next series of photos, taken while the photographer was straddling the impression and shooting down.
“There,” I said. “You can just barely make it out.”
