by Tim McBain
“Sometimes I drink coffee. Sometimes I drink Red Bull. Sometimes, every once in a while, I even drink Monster. It so happens that Monster is a better deal than Red Bull. You get like twice as much for the same price.”
Novotny put his window down a crack and tilted his head toward the opening.
“Christ. It smells like gummy worms or something. Tropical punch and shit.”
McAdoo didn’t know what to say, so he took a sip out of his can, slurping a little. He checked the time on his phone, the little screen lighting up bright. It was 1:04 AM.
“Think Loshak is coming by tonight?” McAdoo said, not wanting to give the silence enough time to settle in.
Novotny shrugged his shoulders before he responded.
“Don’t know. Why? You been missin’ him?”
“Nah. He just breaks up the monotony, I guess.”
“I see how it is. I guess, after all these years, I’m not enough man for you anymore. You need something more.”
“Yeah. No. Very funny, shitbird.”
McAdoo took a big slug out of his can of Monster, almost defensively. The acidic tingle snaked over his tongue and took the plunge toward his belly.
“Don’t worry, Mac. I will personally make sure that Victor Loshak is there to hold your hand while we make the arrest. Might even be able to get a binky you can use during any interrogations.”
“A… A binky?”
“That’s what my little girl calls her pacifier. Thing helps her calm down when something spooks her. Of course, she’s not quite two years old, but I imagine it’d work for a bigger baby such as yourself.”
McAdoo said nothing. He slurped his energy drink. It could be worse, he knew.
Even when Novotny was in an antagonistic mood like this, it was better than the quiet. He had a habit of going mute, speaking not a word for hours at a time, and the silence bothered McAdoo a lot more than the ball-busting. Novotny communicated solely through glares and heavy sighs during those stretches. His presence became aggressive, pushing past uncomfortable into unpleasant. A great weight squatting upon the atmosphere inside the car.
Maybe there’d been less of that behavior since his little girl was born last year. McAdoo hadn’t considered that before, but the timeline seemed to match up with his memories well enough. It was also something else the two of them had in common. They both had gotten married and had daughters in the last four years. Calmed down. Their talk had often come back to terrestrial stuff of late. Family stuff. Hopes and dreams involving simple things like vacations, holiday plans, a future involving preschools and beyond. McAdoo spoke often of owning a boat. His partner talked about making detective someday. In most every way, life seemed much simpler.
Until the Doll Parts Killer showed up.
“Jesus fuck,” Novotny said, his voice thick and deep, barely louder than a whisper.
McAdoo looked up from his can, glancing over at his partner who sat forward in his seat, the binoculars pressed to his eyes, his mouth open wide. He followed the angle of the ‘nocs to the parking lot across the street. Just as he went to reassure himself that his partner was further messing with him, he saw it: the dark figure creeping across the asphalt, disappearing behind the Burger King’s brick facade.
He almost dropped his drink.
“What the hell? Jesus. Is it him?” McAdoo said, immediately a little embarrassed that his voice conveyed more open terror than Novotny’s had.
Novotny lowered the binoculars, though his eyes stayed locked at the place where the figure had vanished behind the building. He answered without making eye contact.
“It’s someone. Caucasian male in jeans and a blue jacket. Let’s roll.”
McAdoo struggled to nestle his Monster into the cup holder, the bottom of the can rattling along with the shaking of his hands.
Novotny cracked the driver’s side door, kicked one leg out and paused in that position to draw his weapon. The gun swished a little pulling free from the holster.
“Wait,” McAdoo whispered, still fumbling with the drink.
If Novotny heard him, he gave no sign of it. His brow furrowed, a fierce look about him like some kind of predator. He moved out of the car without sound, closing the door with great care so that it only emitted the thinnest click.
He moved out, his gun pointed in front of him. One finger rested on the trigger guard, and the thumb on the opposite hand rubbed at the button on his flashlight, ready to light this creeper up once he got close enough.
A wave of panic rippled through McAdoo as he watched his partner move away from the safe space the Mustang had become. After a frozen moment, he jerked into action. He wobbled back and forth in the bucket seat, flopping like a beached narwhal, trying to angle himself in such a way that he could draw his gun.
The voice in his head sounded sure of itself, so he listened.
Get out first. Then draw your weapon.
He stumbled out onto the asphalt, splashing through a mud puddle. He half-jogged, concentrating on getting his gun free from its holster without dropping it, fingers scrabbling over the metal and leather like the spindly legs of a baby deer. There. He had it. He picked up speed. The grip nestling into his fist, setting back against that webbed spot between his thumb and index finger. It felt right. More than right.
He felt in control. Realizing this made him shudder, his shoulders jerking in a series of spasms, but he didn’t slow down.
It looked like something out of a movie. A point-of-view shot. The camera racing across the street, across the parking lot, drawing closer and closer to that point behind the Burger King. But it wasn’t a camera. It was him.
He heard a voice from around the corner, a deep-throated growl that reminded him of his high school gym teacher, Mr. Norris.
“Hands up! Hands up!”
It took him a second to realize it was Novotny doing the yelling, though this brought no real relief.
He rounded the corner, eyes racing to find his partner. There. The other officer stood with his feet shoulder width apart, gun and flashlight pointed at… nothing? McAdoo stopped in his tracks, trying to make sense of it.
“He’s in the dumpster,” Novotny said, his voice closer to normal volume but maintaining a bit of the hard edge from before.
Sweet Jesus. The dumpster? The dump site itself? It really was the killer.
McAdoo’s gun trembled before him as he pointed it at the green trash bin. Pinpricks ripped up and down his limbs, and his head went light. This didn’t feel real. At all.
“Hands up!” Novotny bellowed again. “Right now! Do it! I want to see hands sticking out of that goddamn dumpster at all times.”
Two hands rose above the metal side, the flashlight’s beam reflecting off of the pale of the palms.
A strange slur spoke up from inside the metal trash bin.
“Do you want I should stand up?”
Novotny and McAdoo looked at each other before Novotny said: “What?”
“I said, ‘Do you want I should stand up?’”
Novotny’s body language changed all at once. His shoulders slumped, and he rocked his head back to look skyward as though rolling his eyes wouldn’t be enough.
“Christ,” he said. “Yeah, go on and stand up. That you, Carl?”
“Yessir.”
The man in the dumpster stood. He looked haggard, his graying hair scraggly and his face visibly dirty.
“I take it you know him?” McAdoo said.
Novotny nodded.
“Carl Metzger. He’s not the guy. It’s the wrong dumpster anyhow.”
As soon as he said it, McAdoo remembered that he was right. The body had been found in the grease dumpster located behind the building, not this one which was closer to the back of the lot.
“You out picking through the trash again, Carl?” Novotny said. “Carl here was in county lockup most of the past 60 days. Trespassing and contempt of court. Just got out three or four days ago, I think. Is that right?”
The
guy in the dumpster bobbed his head slowly up and down. Smiled a little.
“So what do we do?” McAdoo said.
“Might as well take him in. Let the detectives clear him officially. Shit, they may as well get some extra paperwork duty out of this, too. Lord knows we will.”
Chapter 46
Her phone buzzed that evening, just as she finished polishing off a takeout box of Chicken Lo Mein.
“Detective,” she said by way of answering after seeing the name on the screen. She thought she heard cartoons in the background.
“Good evening, Agent Darger,” Luck said, all official-like, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. Then his voice relaxed. “How’d it go?”
“With my report?” she asked. “Fine. I’ve always had a knack for bullshitting my way through paperwork for some reason. If he really wanted to punish me, he would have made me present my report to a crowd while wearing only my underwear.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”
Violet snorted, tracing the lattice pattern on the bedspread with a fingertip. The interlocking lines reminded her of a birdcage.
“I had an interesting visit earlier,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Patricia Peters came by.”
“Oh. Merry Christmas,” he muttered. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Me either.”
“Was she pissed off?”
“She was more upset than anything else. Blaming herself, really. For everything. I think the reality of it finally hit her.”
“Geez,” Luck said, exhaling with a whoosh and crackle of static. “I can’t even imagine trying to come to terms with something like that.”
“Yeah,” Violet said, and her eyes automatically went to the brooch on her lapel.
“Well, I know you got ordered to stand down as far as the leak was concerned, but I went over to the funeral home this afternoon,” he said. “Put the screws to the director.”
“It’s Saturday. Isn’t it your day off?”
“Yeah, well. You know how it is. We’re never really off-duty, are we?”
Violet felt strangely flattered that Luck had gone out of his way to do that. Though she supposed she was being presumptuous to assume he’d done it for her. You and your assumptions, Agent Darger, she could hear him say.
“What did that sniveling reptile have to say for himself?”
“Wasn’t him,” Luck said. “He has a nephew that does odd jobs around the place. Of course, the funeral director swears he’s a good kid, and it must have been some of his friends that pressured him into it.”
“Peer pressure to defile a corpse. That’s a new one,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You talk to the kid?”
“Yeah,” Luck said. “Pretty sure he crapped in his tighty-whities, especially when I embellished the truth a little and told him it was a felony to profit off the desecration a human corpse.”
“Nice.”
Violet was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and she let herself fall backward. The back of her skull bounced when it made contact with the mattress.
“And if it makes you feel any better, I think between my little white lie and the hell he’s gonna catch from his uncle, he’ll probably end up donating the money to charity.”
Darger’s eyes traced the irregular outline of a water stain on the ceiling. It was shaped a little bit like a cowboy hat.
“That’d be something.”
Luck must have heard something in her voice, because he sighed.
“You know it isn’t your fault, right? You were trying to do a good thing.”
“Trying,” she said with a wry smile.
“You know what I mean.”
Darger threw her arm over her eyes, blocking out the light in the room.
“Yeah.”
“I just wish I could do something to cheer you up, that’s all,” he said.
Violet bit her lip, thinking of their encounter after the funeral.
“I bet you do.”
“Now, now, Agent. Look at you getting all manner of salacious thoughts in your head. My intentions were all but pure.”
“Right. Pure.”
He laughed.
“Well, hey. I have family obligations tomorrow, but if I get any updates on anything, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you on Monday.”
“Until then,” Darger said and hung up the phone.
She wasn’t going to check again. She didn’t want to know. It only made her angry all over again.
She got up, took a step away from the bed, and then leaned down and took the mouse in her hand, unable to resist the urge.
She loaded the browser and typed the first few letters into the address bar. It already knew what she wanted and finished the URL for her. Her thumb stabbed the Enter key.
When she’d first looked, the funeral home video had 88 comments. The next time she’d loaded the page, it was up to 212. Then 492. That didn’t count Facebook, which had added another 770 comments and over 4500 Likes. She tried to imagine the type of person who would “Like” something like that.
The page loaded. At the top was a story about some Hollywood producer’s mental breakdown. Violet wondered sardonically if that would be enough to staunch the flow of new attention to the Sierra video. She had to scroll down through several posts to reach it, as the site seemed to have some new juicy tidbit of gossip every hour, if not more often. There was almost a day’s worth of “news” covering the Doll Parts story now.
But she only got two posts down before she saw a new headline that caught her eye.
FBI Agent: “Doll Parts Killer is sick.” These crime scene photos prove it!
“Oh shit,” Darger said.
The article had been posted 37 minutes ago. She wondered who the hell in the FBI would be so stupid as to give The Daily Gawk a quote.
Loshak? Never.
And she hadn’t talked to any reporters. So who?
Her mouse clicked on the bold text, and she started to wonder if someone was trying to set them up somehow. Someone within the investigation. Who else would be leaking this stuff?
When the article loaded, she scanned down the page. It wasn’t until she reached the third photo that she realized it was even worse than she’d imagined.
There on the screen, in full color, were the crime scene photos from Sierra’s file. Darger’s personal file. Darger’s personal photos.
She was dreaming. It was a nightmare. It had to be. This could not be happening. Had she been hacked?
She squinted closer at the photos, realizing that they weren’t “originals” so to speak. The quality was bad. Oddly pixelated. And there was a glare on some of them as if there was a reflection of the camera flash. In one photo, you could clearly make out the edge of a laptop screen.
Her laptop screen.
And then she finally put it all together.
Someone had taken photographs of her computer screen. That was when her eyes roamed over to a pull quote from the article. In big black letters it read:
“The killer is sick. And the sickness is bone deep.” — Violet Darger, Superstar FBI Profiler
For the love of God. Superstar? Who wrote this shit?
It was at that moment that her phone buzzed. She didn’t have to look to know the screen said, “Cal Ryskamp.” She flinched as she pressed the Answer Call button.
“Darg—” He cut her off before she could even properly answer.
“Tell me I’m in the motherfucking Twilight Zone.”
“Cal.”
“Please tell me that, Violet. Please tell me that I’ve wandered into some kind of temporary alternate reality in which everything is upside-fucking-down, because I swear to God we just had a conversation yesterday about these tabloid leaks.”
“I know, Cal. But listen—”
“No, no, no, Agent Darger. You listen. My goddamn neck is in the noose right now, so whatever you have to say, it better be good.�
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“The quote is a lie, Cal. That was something said in confidence to the victim’s mother. I didn’t know she was going to turn around and sell me out!”
“No? You didn’t think everyone in that fucking podunk town was going to be looking around for ways to make a quick buck off their most famous resident at the moment? Wise up, Darger! I mean, Jesus God Almighty.”
She knew Cal well enough to know that, while potent at first, his temper never sustained itself for long. She could hear in his voice that it was already starting to fizzle.
“What about the photos?”
“She must have got into them when I left the room for a minute. I mean you can obviously tell they’re shitty cell phone shots of my computer screen, not the real thing.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Cal said, laughing bitterly. “It’s just one disaster after another.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Violet. Be better. I mean, fuck! You know this isn’t how to play the game. I was trying to do you a solid here. I rub your back — help you get your foot in the door with Behavioral. But instead of rubbing back, you keep fucking me in the ass.”
“That’s a delightful image, Cal. Thank you.”
She cared even less for the inference that any of this was a game.
“Don’t get cute. I’m serious. This is your big chance. And mine,” he was sure to add. “Do not screw this up. Got it?”
“Oh, I got it.”
When Cal finally let her off the phone, she peeked her head around her door. Loshak’s blinds were closed, no light could be seen around the edges. Maybe he was finally sleeping off his illness.
How long had he been suffering now? It had to be coming up on two weeks. No way it was food poisoning. An ulcer, maybe?
A small wave of relief washed over her as she pulled her head back into her room. She’d had about as much disapproval and condemnation as she could handle for one day, anyway.
Tomorrow would be a new day. And who dared to dream what new horrors it might hold?
Chapter 47
Violet was already up when the knock came at her door. She likely wouldn’t have slept well as it was. Her sleep schedule was shot to hell. And that was on top of everything else.
