Shadows of Doubt

Shadows of Doubt Page 33

by Corcoran, Mell

  “Oh yes, yes! So far I would have to say a clean cut case of suicide. Hung himself from the curtain rod in the only bathroom of the apartment. Quite a sturdy curtain rod for such a shabby place, don’t you agree?” Peter Carpesh was a pleasant man but Lou could see now why Vinny had his slang name for him.

  Vinny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’d be right about that. Who’s the lead officer on this? Do you know?”

  Carpesh turned and stuck his head back into Bender’s apartment and called out to someone inside. Turning back to Lou and Vinny he smiled again, very brightly at Lou. “Peretta is the lead, he’s coming. I best get back to work now. Its a pleasure seeing you both again. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.” Carpesh scooted past them and disappeared around the bend.

  Moments later a mountain of a man came out of the apartment, peeling off his gloves. He was classic Latin coloring with eyelashes that looked like they were fake, they were so damn thick. Lou couldn’t help but stare.

  “Detective Donovan?” The LAPD homicide detective extended his hand to her immediately and she broke from her eyelash envy to shake the man’s hand.

  “Yeah, this is my partner, Vinny DeLuca.” She pointed and the man offered his hand to Vinny.

  “A pleasure. I bet I can guess what brings you to my crime scene.” He said with a blinding smile. “Let me get you some gloves and booties then we can get you inside.” Detective Peretta walked around the corner then came back within moments holding out the required accessories.

  When they entered the apartment, Lou instantly felt the strong urge to shower. It was not dirty as in dust or grime, it was dirty as in creepy twisted pervert lived there, which was obviously the case.

  “Whoa.” Vinny gawked at the images of Katarina Purrs that were hung, taped or tacked to nearly every inch of wall space.

  “Yeah.” Peretta nodded. “That’s exactly what I said when I walked in.”

  The images of Purrs appeared to be blown up stills from her older films that depicted her in assorted lewd positions. Bender had obviously taken great care to pick all his favorites, even having some matted and framed. The studio apartment was small and dark with what little you could see of the walls being painted a ruby red. The brown shag carpet was strewn with black area rugs that appeared to be homemade cut outs of over-endowed women, like those mudflaps you see on eighteen-wheeler trucks. Nearly every counter top, table top or other flat surface had some sort of naked lady kitsch on it. Even the lamps that sat on each of the black plastic tables flanking the heavily abraded sofa were in the image of naked women holding umbrellas.

  “I wonder if he liked naked women?” Vinny jested, making everyone in the room chuckle.

  The coroner techs were just lifting Mr. Bender into the body bag when Vinny and Lou got to the bathroom which was also decorated in the naked lady theme. Toby Bender was five and a half feet on a good day and was just as creepy looking as his apartment led you to anticipate. He wore a 1970’s baby blue tuxedo, complete with ruffles. His hair was slicked to a high sheen and parted severely to the left. The early aroma of decomposition mingled with the overabundance of bad cologne to complete the pathetic scene.

  “Guy dressed for the occasion, I see.” Lou had seen enough as the techs zipped him up.

  “So over here is what I think you two will be interested in.” Peretta led them to the tiny computer desk in the corner of the main room of the apartment. The evidence marker drawing their attention to a carefully handwritten note on stationery with the same naked lady silhouette as the area rugs. In it, Bender had professed his adoration for Katarina Purrs as well as his devastation over her rejection of him. He further went on to say that he had killed her and marked her so he would be able to recognize her in her angelic form when he met her in heaven. He concluded with a brief notation of how he hoped he looked nice for her as he was wearing his favorite suit.

  “Seriously?” Lou boggled over the note. “This twit whacked Purrs then offed himself?” It was very neat and tidy for public consumption and Lou wanted to call it for the crap that she knew it was, but Peretta placed a hand on her shoulder before she could.

  “It would appear so.” He said to her, giving her a hairy eyeball to shut her up. It bit at her hard.

  “Well hell, that sure brings an abrupt end to this. I was enjoying the freak show, too.” Vinny appeared to be very disappointed.

  “I’ll have copies of all this sent to you right away so that you can close your files on it.” Peretta headed for the door and nodded to the forensics tech that was standing by to bag and tag the note.

  “Thanks.” Vinny said as he followed Peretta out. “This all works out pretty damn nicely if ya ask me. I got a thing Friday so I won’t feel so guilty taking the time with this wrapped up.”

  “You got a thing?” Lou asked as she followed the men. “What thing?”

  “Well...” Vinny turned to her with a guilty look. “... I need a favor actually, kiddo.”

  “I’ll leave you two to talk while I finish with my guys. Yell if you need anything.” Peretta winked at Lou as he took off around the corner.

  “What, Vinny?” Lou grumbled at him even though the source of her ire wasn’t him.

  “Well when the Captain called last night, he told me he got me a spot in Friday’s testing for the Lieutenant’s exam.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet.

  “That’s great!” The reality of things hit Lou and she calmed down quite a bit. The necessity of the cover up coming into focus. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Well Vera has had morning sickness ya know only it’s morning, noon and night sickness. Not to mention the friggin cravings! I’m on a first name basis with the guy that works the night shift at the mini-mart. So studying has been hit and miss for me. I was hoping I could take a personal day tomorrow and hide out at you’re uncle’s to study, and you would cover for me so Vera thinks I’m working. I don’t want to hurt her feelings but I’m nervous as hell about this test.”

  Lou grinned at her partner and grabbed his arm, linking hers with his. “You bet!”

  He blew out a breath, obviously relieved. “Thanks kiddo, I appreciate it a lot.”

  They headed down the stairs and toward the car. “No worries. Besides, this way I’ll feel less guilty about taking Friday for this stupid thing I have to go to.” She didn’t think it was stupid at all, but had said that for Vinny’s benefit.

  He looked at her with a raised brow. “What thing?” He mimicked her tone from moments ago and she snorted at his uncanny impression of her.

  “An art charity fundraiser something or other, with my parents. Caroline is going with her family who came into town for it. She and my Mom want to go to some salon and get all girlied up for it. Bad enough I gotta go after work with Caroline tonight and get some fancy-shmancy dress I’ll only wear once.”

  “Hey!” Vinny stopped in his tracks. “Get one you can wear to my kid’s wedding! Get a second use out of it eventually!”

  Lou couldn’t help but smile at him. “That is a genius idea. I’ll keep the wedding in mind when I am picking it out.”

  “Detective Donovan, a word if you could real quick?” Peretta yelled from the steps of the apartment and Vinny looked at him funny.

  “Be right back, get the heater running.” Lou jogged back to the steps.

  “My sincere apologies that you were not briefed on this. As soon as I arrived on scene and read the note, I called our Dom and informed him.” Peretta scanne
d the area to make sure that no one would overhear them. “It’s a serious stroke of luck that this freak wants to claim responsibility for Purrs. I was planning on contacting you as soon as I headed back to the station on this but, well, you just showed up!”

  Lou looked at Peretta suspiciously. “You mean the note wasn’t a plant?”

  “No! Not at all! This is legit all the way.” She could tell he wasn’t bullshitting her.

  “Serious stroke of luck is an understatement. Thanks for letting me know.” She turned to head back to the car.

  “I look forward to working with you in the future, Detective.” Peretta smiled as she walked away.

  As she and her partner drove off, Lou could only think that her selfishness in wanting to scream cover-up almost cost Vinny study time for his test. She knew she would catch the rogue and that Max would make him pay dearly. So what difference did it make if some creepy, greasy freak took the public wrap for Katarina Purrs if it protected everyone all around? She would just have to make sure she caught the true murdering bastard before he could claim another victim.

  Lou ducked out of the building under the pretext of a stomach ache from the pancakes she had for breakfast which baffled Vinny because it was only a short-stack. When Lou felt she was safely tucked away in the back of the parking lot across the street, she called Max’s suite in the hope that someone other than him would answer, that she could throw her fit at and they could give him the message. Unfortunately, Frank didn’t wait long enough for her to get started before he handed the phone to Max.

  “I’m certain you think this was staged Detective but I assure you the note and Mr. Bender’s suicide as well as everything you saw at the crime scene was one-hundred-percent genuine.” Max got it all out before she could say one word. It was highly deflating. “Detective? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, dammit, I’m still here!” Her tone even sounded deflated and she knew he could tell.

  “Good...” Lou could have sworn he sounded a little panicked. “... then to support my case I would suggest you look at Mr. Bender’s rantings on certain blugs so you can see that I am telling you the truth. Frank will text you with the web addresses.”

  “Blugs?” She thought for a moment. “You mean blogs?”

  “What?” She could hear him muttering under his breath then heard Frank whispering in the background. “Yes yes! Blogs, whatever they are!”

  Lou grinned at Max’s obvious embarrassment. “It’s okay, I know old guys like you have a tough time adapting to these newfangled sources of communication and information. You should have seen Vinny this morning with his new headset for his cellphone.”

  “Very funny, Detective.” Max grumbled. “And Vinny looks easily fifteen years older than I do. Now take advantage of the bone the Fates have thrown us with Bender and lets focus on the real murderer, shall we?”

  She considered for a moment. “Blood-Swear?” She recalled Abby and Caroline telling her it was the most sacred of all swears to the Sanguinostri.

  “What?” He sounded surprised by her request.

  “Will you Blood-Swear that Bender’s suicide is for real and has no Sanguinostri prints on it?” She posed it clearly for him.

  “If that’s what you wish, I’ll come by this evening and do so.” He hadn’t hesitated.

  “Nah, that’s okay. The fact that you’re willing is good enough. See you Friday.” She hung up before he could say a word, and headed back across the street.

  By the time she got back to her desk Frank had sent her several web addresses to various blogs dedicated to the worship of Katarina Purrs and other vintage porn stars. All of them had Purrs’ murder as the hot topic and there were plenty of comments from readers who both loved and hated the woman. Another consistency was the poster who went by the screen name of ‘Toby_Purrs4Kat’ basically spamming each site right about the time the media broke the story of her death. The numerous posts were filled with his professed love for Purrs and his grief over having had to kill her because he loved her too much to let her go. Apparently, in his mind, as evidenced by much earlier posts that spanned over several months at least, he and Purrs were involved in a torrid romance. His last post on each site was within several minutes of one another and they apologized to everyone for taking such a gift from God away from her fans and that he was leaving to meet her. Lou was willing to bet that Bender’s time of death was right around the time of the last post.

  “This kid was a freaking drama queen!” Vinny startled her, having been reading the screen from over her shoulder. She would have to remember in the future that he was real stealthy like that.

  Lou smirked. “No kidding. I keep expecting to read ‘Goodbye cruel world’ in one of his posts.”

  “Well, he wanted the attention, he sure got it.” Vinny reached around her and typed in one of the local news channel web addresses into her browser. “Media is already all over it and we haven’t even filed the paperwork.”

  Once the page had finished loading, the headline read ‘Uber-Fan sticks it to Porn Diva’ and had a picture of Toby Bender that made him look even creepier than he did when they were loading him into the body bag.

  Lou grumbled. “I’ll bet you lunch someone got paid real well for the tip.”

  “That’s a sucker bet.” He scooted back and looked at her. “Hey, that must mean your tummy feels better!”

  She almost forgot she had used that as a lame excuse earlier but caught herself and nodded. “Probably better skip lunch though just in case. Let’s get all the paper work ready on this so when Peretta’s stuff comes in all we have to do is file it.”

  “So young, yet so wise.” Her partner grinned as he went back to his desk to do just as she suggested.

  Peretta had called at around three-thirty to apologize for the delay in relaying the reports to them. The coroner was waiting for the toxicology to come back before they would formalize cause of death. Lou had to admit that the level of courtesy and cooperation was a refreshing change and would probably be hard to get used to. When Caroline arrived to pick Lou up for their shopping excursion just before five, she confirmed Peretta’s story with her and stated things should be wrapped up on their end by the morning. Given that, and the late hour, Lou assured Vinny she would make sure everything got filed properly and he needn’t worry about taking the day to study. Especially since she was taking her own personal day on Friday while he took his test. When he was content with the plan they checked in with their captain to give him their report as it stood. Satisfied with the situation, Captain Davidson sent them on their way for the evening, telling Vinny to study hard and good luck on Friday.

  “Donovan, I’d like a word before you go.” The Captain informed her and Vinny gave her a nervous look before he left. Once Vinny had gone and the door was closed he motioned for Lou to sit. “I wanted to talk to you and mostly apologize for having to sit you out of things temporarily. Now you understand that I had a duty above and beyond this desk to uphold.”

  Lou nodded. “I understand sir. It was a little disconcerting to learn of you’re association, I’ll admit.”

  “You have no idea how frustrating it has been for me, not having anyone on the front lines to be able to work with and handle things that I am clearly not in any position to handle as a captain.” It was odd for Lou to listen to him speak so casually and freely. He usually was so formal, which as her captain he should be, but this was yet another breath of fresh air for her today.

  “Sir, may I ask why you didn’t request people be
recruited to assist you?” It may have been asking the obvious but she wanted to hear it from him. “I mean, I am new to all this but from what I gather, the Aegis Council has protocols for just that.”

  “I did!” He tossed his hands up in frustration. “I mean, I went through the proper channels with the local agent in charge and was waiting. That bastard Gilroy. I never would have guessed he was that corrupt and was just tossing requisitions into the trash. I just assumed the Council was bogged down and would get to me when they could. Anyway, the point is I am sorry and I appreciate your understanding. When you have time I think we should grab a cup of coffee and collaborate on our own protocols here since we will be getting at least a couple new recruits now that our Dom is taking personal control of things.“

  Lou stared at her captain, confounded. “Sir, I don’t see where my input would be proper given you’re the veteran Sanguinostri here. I appreciate your consideration, though.”

  Davidson cocked his head and looked at her for several seconds, then grinned as he spoke. “Lou, our Dominor hasn’t told you yet, has he?” Davidson laughed a deep and hearty laughter. “That explains all the sir’s and shit! Well isn’t this funny.”

  “Sir?” Lou was baffled.

  “There it is again! Okay, he really hasn’t told you so I guess I better. This is going to be priceless.” Her captain leaned in over the desk and looked at her with a gleam in his eye. “Yes, I am your captain in this law enforcement agency. But our Dom has made it very clear to all the stewards and agents that you will be in charge of any Sanguinostri criminal investigations from here on out. So technically, and make no mistake I am thrilled about it on so many levels, you are my boss with only the Aegis and our Dom above you.”

  “What?!” Lou couldn’t help but shout which made Davidson roar with laughter.

  He wiped a tear from his eye. “You need to have a talk with our Dominor so you are better informed of your station, my dear.”

 

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