by Nick Keller
13
WISE DONNA’TELLA
Donna’tella came into the Cold Case office with her usual strut, more swang than swing, long, braided hair extensions dressed in eloquent loops rocking back and forth with her cadence. She spotted Bernie hulked over his desk scowling with concentration and pecking away at his keyboard. She stopped and eyeballed him. She’d always known Bernie as a serious type, quicker to grunt than cajole. But in the last twenty-four hours he’d been absolutely somber. She figured Captain Heller was coming down on him to solve a case. It made her chuckle.
“You gonna scare the shit out of that monitor you keep looking at it like that, big sexy!” He didn’t respond, so she stepped closer. “Wachu doin’, shoog?”
He didn’t look at her, just kept clicking and pecking. “Trying to find something.”
“Wachu trying to find?”
“A connection.”
“This them starlet murders?”
“Yeah.”
“So?” she said.
Bernie broke away from the screen with a sigh and said, “Two cases. Almost identical, but completely different. And this one.” He flipped open the folder on his desk revealing the Dulce Dios murder scene photo. “A third.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said.
“There’s too many similarities to discount. But no connection.” Bernie made a frustrated gesture with his hands. “It looks like a serial, but, then it don’t.”
“No M.O.” Donna assumed picking up the photo and eyeballing it.
“Nope. I don’t even know if it’s the same guy. For all I know, I’m chasing butterflies.”
She dropped the photo back on his desk and said, “Yeah, that’s a tricky one, baby. You ain’t gonna find no connection till you find the M.O. But without no M.O. you ain’t gonna find no connection.”
“Shit,” he said in agreement and rubbed his face.
She cracked a grin, teeth glowing through her large features. “You know what you need, shoog?”
“A drink,” he said pinching the bridge of his nose.
She laughed rubbing his broad shoulders. “You need some brown sugar in your life.”
He grinned. “One lump or two?”
She held his head tight into her bosoms. “Baby, I got all the sugar you’d ever need.”
He looked up at her with his eyes. “I don’t think I could handle you, big baby.”
She pushed his head forward releasing him and said, “Best be poolin’ your resources, then shoog.” She laughed in her streetwise way and moved back to her desk.
He squinted at her, thinking. Pool his resources? Hmm.
14
ERTER & DOBBS
William pounded a rhythm on his treadmill. His pace matched his heartbeat. Two and a half strides a second. He was moving fast. Each breath sprayed a burst of sweat and spit. He’d been at it for nearly an hour working his way up to eight and a half miles—in through the nose, out through the mouth. The window above his head, which he’d replaced once Anthony Sola Jr. tried popping him with a sniper rifle, was beginning to fog. Here on his treadmill, he’d found the balance between his physical and his internal—the real and the underneath. Runners called it their runner’s high. He wasn’t sure what killers called it. But there was peace here, long, hard and hot.
The visitor buzzer rang downstairs making him blink, but he continued running, increasing his speed. Just a few more tenths of a mile.
It buzzed again.
The dial clicked. One more tenth. Just a few seconds.
His cell phone jiggled on silent mode over on his desk. The lit face read Bernie Dobbs. William made an interested face and killed the exercise machine. Wrapping a towel around his sweaty neck he brought the phone to his ear. In between breaths he said, “Detective Dobbs?”
“Will, it’s me. You sound hurt.”
“Hurt—no, not at all.”
“You upstairs?”
“I am.”
“Well, get down here.”
“Of course.” He laid the phone down wiping his face and hands with the towel. He went downstairs, through the wide-open space of his warehouse living area, into the narrow admittance hall, down the three steps and pushed open the outer door. Bernie gave him a shocked look.
“Jesus, kid.”
“Bernie…” He put out a hand. They shook.
“You’re sweating like a pig on a spit.”
“I was running.”
“Heh—I’d rather be a pig on a spit.”
“Come in, come in.” Bernie stepped inside, his heavy footsteps thumping up the stairs and down the hall. William followed closing the outer door behind. “How are things at the precinct?”
“Same shit, different day. How’s things at the college?”
“Just the ordinary. Not a whole lot of change day-to-day.”
“You too then, huh.”
“Yes. Spring term’s over now. I have down time.”
Bernie walked into the living area, an old antiquated warehouse the city had renovated into usable space, and which William had turned into his home with its stained cement floor, ancient brick walls and high, overhead ceiling. Even the big, steel support struts were visible. Light fixtures dangled above.
William went into the kitchen area and threw open the refrigerator. “Would you like a bottled water?”
Bernie held his hat in his hands. “No, it’s too early for bottled water, kid. You got any Jack?”
“No, sorry. Coffee?”
“As if they were the same. Sure, I’ll take some of that.”
William grabbed a cup from the cupboard and began pouring the coffee. Bernie stood outside the wet bar looking into the living room, then across at a guest’s area demarcated by a throw rug and a pair of couches. There were no bullet holes in the brick wall from his latest escapades with Anthony Sola Jr., but he could see where they’d been patched, and the main window had been replaced. One would never know William’s home had been peppered by a sniper rifle just months ago. Everything was pristine and dustless. “You fixed the place.”
“Yes, I did. Couldn’t claim it on insurance. They don’t cover that sort of thing, as it turns out.” William snickered.
“Hmm—insurance companies. You keep it clean, at least.”
“It’s next to godliness.”
“God, huh. If ever there was an OCD kind of guy.” Bernie’s eyes fell on the computer desk set against the rear exterior wall. Above it was a collection of portraits—families in their final poses, all gawking at the camera through eyes that held no life. William had once referred to those portraits as reminders. They were his father’s handiwork. The Portrait Killer. Bernie shook his head a little disgusted and groaned, “Mmm.”
“Here.” William handed him the coffee over the wet bar.
“You got any cream and sugar?”
“Oh, I—I don’t.”
“Figures.” He sipped and tried to hide his frown. “So, speaking of college classes, what’s the news on our little cohort?”
“Jacky?” William cleared his throat. “There is no word, I’m afraid.”
The news got Bernie’s attention and he looked at him. “You think he’s dead?”
“Something tells me no, actually.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Perhaps it’s a—a hunch.”
“Well, your hunches are as good as any, kid,” he said and sipped again cringing.
William guzzled his water and reveled in it momentarily. “Bernie, I get the distinct impression this isn’t a social call, is it?”
Bernie offered a sideways smirk and said, “Is that another hunch?”
“It is.”
“Well, you’re right. I got a nutjob on the streets, Will.”
“Is that your motive for being here, chasing a nutjob?”
“Don’t take it personal-like.”
“Why would I?”
“Because you’re a nutjob,” Bernie said.
“Ah, yes.” William tipped his bo
ttle of water at him in a cheers notion, and drank. “So, are you asking for my help?”
“No,” he said. Of course he was. It wasn’t his style to ask for it, though. “Just pooling my resources.” He drummed his fingers on the wet bar. “Why, do you wanna help?”
“I absolutely do.”
“Good.” Bernie sipped on the coffee again, this time making no qualms about how shitty it tasted. He reached across the wet bar and poured it out in the sink. “On second thought, I’d rather get that drink. Let’s go. I’m driving.”
SHANKLEY’S OPENED at eleven in the morning. The large dining portion serviced the late breakfast crowd, but within the hour the professional lunch crowd would be piling in. They had good lunch specials at Shankley’s, especially the burgers and Philly cheesesteak. Bernie and William were the only occupants in the long bar area separated from the main dining floor through a set of rustic doors. A bar tender and a bored-looking cocktail waitress doubling as a lunch server leaned on the bar at the far end flirting with each other.
William and Bernie sat at the table where they’d first met several months ago. For Bernie it felt like five years. He wondered if it even registered to William, then realized it did—probably like a burst of white-hot memory in his lucid brain.
William shuffled through the files looking at the photos of one dead starlet, then the next. He laid them on the table and said, “There’s semen present.”
“Yeah, both cases.”
“No identification, I’m assuming.”
“No I.D.”
“And no match?” William asked.
“The lab wasn’t able to match. It was bad. My hunch—it’s the same semen.”
“Same killer, then,” William said.
“Yeah.”
“That would be a serial, Bernie.”
“That would be a serial, William.”
William looked at the photos again and said, “So, in each case the murder weapon was found at the crime scene?”
“Yeah,” Bernie replied. “Which indicates crimes of passion.”
“Yes it does. Much like the semen.”
“Right. Except for each murder was planned. Those ligature marks say so.” He pointed at the bruising and cutting on the photos.
William searched the photo of Andi Jones. Bernie observed a nearly perverse sense of compassion and intrigue as he looked into death’s eyes. “Ligature marks,” William said the way a sugar addict might say meringue pie. “Someone tied them up, bound them, controlled them. They enjoyed what they were doing.”
“Yeah.” Bernie shuttled his eyes back and forth uncomfortably.
Dropping the photo down, William said, “So, you have two girls. Both aspiring actresses. Both tested positive for semen. Both killed with the same degree of brutality.”
“That’s right. Then there’s this. A third one.” He poked at the file folder of Dulce Dios.
William opened it and pulled out the photos, wide-eyed like a kid at Christmas. One picture was taken from the cliff’s edge looking down. It showed her body sprawled in its final position way at the bottom of a ravine. “This is murder?”
“She was thrown.”
“Semen?”
“In her uterus.”
“Yet neither scene indicates any connection to the other?”
“Same degree of brutality, and spunk that ain’t got no seed. That’s it.”
“And that they were planned?” William added.
“Looks like it. I can’t find an M.O. to tie them together.” Frustrated, Bernie drained his Jack double and held it up to the bartender across the way.
William tilted the photo of Dulce Dios looking at it with recognition. He pulled out her file papers reading. “Dulce Dios. Hmm—I recall this one. Her murder was in the news. There was a sizeable vigil, as I recall.”
“Yeah,” Bernie said.
“Why?”
“She was Mexican.”
William fingered through the other papers scanning and reading. “Mmm—no, I believe there’s something else. She had a following. She was famous, an icon in the Hispanic community.”
“I never heard of her. At least, not until she died,” Bernie said. The waitress dropped off another glass of whiskey, on ice. “Thanks, darling.”
She grinned and left.
William said, “Do you recall a Selena Perez, back in the nineties?”
“Yeah. Pop star. It was a big deal. That was twenty years ago, though.” He took a sip.
“At the time she was murdered, had you ever heard of her?”
Bernie puckered, thinking. “No, I guess not. Point taken.”
“She was about to cross markets. She was very important to the Hispanic fan base, well known in the Hispanic community. She’d just signed with a sizeable record label. She was about to blow up the music scene.”
Bernie squinted at him. “You saying this guy killed this Selena Perez?”
“No, not at all. That case was solved a long time ago. But their reasons might’ve been similar. This girl—Dulce Dios. What was her resume?”
“I haven’t investigated,” his eyes drifted away. “But that’s weird.”
“What?”
“Donna mentioned the same thing. She mentioned resumes—her body of work.”
“Donna?”
“Girl at work.”
“Why’d she mention her body of work?”
“Because this one. Andi Jones.” He slid Andi’s file over to him and fingered through it. “She had just hit the big time, was going to do a TV series. Just got signed as a regular on some show, uh—Bad Sister.”
“Bad Sister. Yes, I recall.”
“Yeah—I never watched it.”
“What about this one—Candy Starr?” William grabbed Candy’s photos and file.
“People liked her,” Bernie grunted. “Say she was the real deal. Her agent’s a holy fucking whack job.”
“Ah. I see. Did he do it?”
“Heh, I thought the same thing, but no. Well, we all did it, according to him. Some ripples-in-the-human-pond eastern philosophy bullshit.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Yeah, but he emailed me her talent file. Guess what. She had a nice resume. It was growing. Things were moving for her.”
William sat back in the booth. “Not unlike this Dulce Dios. She was popular, perhaps even on the verge of mega-stardom, similar to her predecessor, Selena Perez. It looks like our suspect—he’s killing young actresses about to get their big break. That smacks of envy, Bernie.”
“Jesus,” Bernie said. “I mean—Jesus.”
Will made a concerned face, rethinking his opinion. “There’s one thing, though.”
“What?”
“A jealous actor would kill actors. Not actresses.” He looked up. “Maybe the killer’s a woman.”
Bernie waved the file at him. “Semen?”
“Mmm, true,” William said.
“Besides,” Bernie said, “men like to kill women. Not men.” He leaned back in the booth staring into the file folder, grinning wildly. “I think you just found this guy’s M.O. Ha! He’s a jealous bastard.”
“Failed actor, perhaps?”
“A Kato Kaelin type. He’s a nutjob.”
Will nodded, satisfied. “Unfortunately, this is a town built on failed actors.”
“Yeah, but still, I knew I got you out of your bat cave for something, you freak.” He swished the glass in his hand and drained it back. “Okay, I’ll get back to the…” He jerked as his cell phone needled him in the side. He reached down and swiped it. It was a text message. He froze, just looking at it. His gaze drifted up to William. In the thread of time it took him to inspect the text, his eyes had changed, become a ravenous mixture of worry and fury. He said, “I gotta go.”
William said, “You’re my ride.”
Bernie took a big, angry breath and said, “Then you’re with me, let’s go.”
15
BERNIE MOUNTS A RESCUE
Once t
hey reached the door, Bernie’s pace had quickened to a jog. When they got to the Crown Vic he was in an all-out sprint.
“Bernie, what’s going on?”
“Get in!”
Their doors slammed, the engine cranked and they spit gravel leaving the parking lot. He hit Atlantic Boulevard thumping over the curb and squealing rubber as they met pavement. The engine roared, then shifted into automatic overdrive. William had the oh shit handle gripped in one hand, his other hand on the dashboard stabilizing himself. He shot a nervous look at Bernie as they screamed toward an intersection. The yellow turned red. Bernie smashed the horn bringing traffic to a stop. The Crown Vic went barreling through.
They swerved violently through four miles of traffic before Atlantic Boulevard became Eastern Avenue at the railroad tracks. They went airborne smashing the undercarriage back down bouncing William into the dashboard. “Bernie—” he cried.
Bernie didn’t respond, just ripped the wheel right and left leaving screaming tires on the road. The neighborhoods became a bunch of gas stations, auto mechanics garages and palm trees. Bernie jumped a medium flying through a gap in oncoming traffic and roared the Crown Vic into a Budget Hotel parking lot. The tires locked and Bernie was out before the car came to a complete stop.
“Jesus…” William moaned catching his breath.
Bernie hit the hotel exterior stairway and ran the steps in threes to the upper level. He came to a door holding his breath. He put both hands to it and pressed his ear against it hard, trying to be calm, listening. He heard voices inside. They were snickering and cavorting.
William came up from behind and stopped. They looked each other in the eyes, and William flinched. Bernie was like a storm.
