Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “How about more recently?” Lou’s tone made it sound like a reprimand.

  “No one who don’t b-e-e-long,”‘ Gus said snidely, looking at Kali. “Only people we ever seen round here are the kind like you’d expect to find nosing in a culvert.”

  Kali felt the pinch of guilt. Insulting them was the very thing she’d tried to avoid.

  “Watch your tone,” Lou said brusquely. He called to the uniformed cop to make sure their names and addresses were on record. Then he turned back to the boys. “Think about it. Ask around. If it turns out you remember seeing someone, give us a call. You tell us something helpful, there might be some money in it for you.”

  “How much?” Gus asked.

  “Depends.” When the boys were gone, Lou muttered, “Tomorrow’s leaders. Doesn’t fill me with optimism.”

  “They did call the cops,” Kali pointed out. “That’s more than lots of people would have done.”

  “You sound like my daughter.”

  He probably hadn’t intended it as a compliment, but there was no missing the affection in his voice. Kali liked him better for that. She was beginning to understand, too, that he wasn’t the tough, gruff cop she’d pegged him for.

  “You think they know more and just weren’t talking?” she asked.

  Lou shook his head. “I doubt it. But someone in the neighborhood might know more, and those kids will have better luck getting the word out than we would.”

  They trudged back across the field. Kali could see that the coroner had arrived and was examining the body. News vans gathered, and overhead a helicopter was circling.

  Kali raised her voice to be heard over the thump-thump of the chopper. “You know what I just realized,” she said. “Our killer didn’t put the body next to a garbage can or dumpster this time.”

  “He didn’t have to. The whole place is a dump.”

  Lou was right. And it struck Kali suddenly that the killer was upping the ante each time. The Bayside Strangler had used garbage cans. With the new murders they’d had a dumpster, an outhouse, and now this noxious cesspool of a culvert. Part of his game?

  Bryce moved to join them. “What did you find out?”

  “The kids found her and called the cops,” Lou said. “They didn’t touch anything and didn’t see anything. They don’t think she wasn’t here yesterday. We’re going to get really far with that.” He nodded toward the coroner. “What did Malkin say?”

  “You know Malkin, he doesn’t say diddly until he’s good and ready.” Bryce turned to Kali. “Come look at the body. There’s something I think you should see.”

  Kali hesitated. She thought of the swollen flesh the boys had described. “I’m not sure—”

  But he was already heading off down the narrow edge of the culvert. Reluctantly, she followed. Earl Malkin was near the fence, bent over examining a human shape on the ground. Kali braced herself.

  “The DA here wants to have a look,” Bryce said.

  “Actually, I really—”

  “Sure, I’m finished anyway,” Malkin said.

  He stepped to the side, leaving a clear line of vision to Ruby Wings’s body. Kali didn’t even notice the swollen flesh and distorted features. Instead, she focused on what Ruby was wearing—a pink bikini and some sort of necklace.

  “Is that the pink bathing . . . “ And then it struck her. She felt her chest catch. It wasn’t a necklace around Ruby Wings’s neck.

  It was a dog collar.

  <><><>

  Lou shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  The captain drummed his fingers and didn’t say a word. Then he stood, shut the door and returned to his desk. Lou glanced at Keating, silent and brooding in the next chair. They’d come straight from the crime scene to deliver the news to Burnell in person, which was how they’d both agreed it had to be handled, but Lou had done most of the talking and now he felt the heat of the captain’s scrutiny.

  “A dog collar,” Burnell said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Same as with the Bayside Strangler victims.”

  It wasn’t a question but Lou nodded anyway.

  “Same type?”

  “Plain black leather. Kali says she thinks it’s similar to the ones used before, but we don’t have the details yet.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” As usual, the captain didn’t wait for an answer. “It means the killer has information that’s available to only a limited number of people.”

  Members of law enforcement—and the Bayside Strangler himself. Lou wasn’t sure which was worse. “That’s why we came to you right away,” he said. “It’s, uh. . . it adds a new twist to the investigation.”

  “Sure the hell does.” Burnell stood again and walked to the window, his back to the detectives. Finally he turned. “If our guy was so intent on copying the Bayside Strangler, why didn’t he use collars for the first two murders?” This time the captain sounded as if he did expect an answer.

  “Maybe he didn’t know about them then,” Lou said. Which would mean they were dealing with a copycat and not the Bayside Strangler himself. But it also meant the killer was somehow getting inside information, either because he was part of the investigation or had access to it. Lou didn’t want to think about that.

  “Or maybe it’s just part of the game for him,” Keating suggested. “That seems to be a big part of what excites him.”

  “I thought this type of killer liked to have an authentic signature. Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me?”

  “That was Dr. Dunworthy,” Keating explained. “We were only passing along what he told us.”

  “But the dog collar was part of the Strangler’s signature.” The captain seemed as eager as Lou to discount the possibility that their killer was the actual Strangler.

  “Only in three out of five of the murders,” Keating pointed out. “Could be, too, he dropped the collar with Bailey and Parkhurst simply to throw us off.”

  Burnell glared at Keating. “I thought you told me earlier these recent crimes were different.” Burnell tapped his fingers on his desktop. “That we were looking at a copycat.”

  “We still think that, but you were asking for an explanation—”

  Burnell cut him short. “Let’s just hope the Bayside Strangler is in his grave.”

  Lou couldn’t resist. “Actually, he’d be at the bottom of the sea. As bits of ash.”

  Burnell ignored the comment. “I want this kept quiet, under stand? I’ll keep support personnel in place for you, but you’re to keep the details close to the vest.”

  “Malkin knows,” Lou pointed out. “And so do the first cops to the scene.”

  “And we can’t shut the DA’s office out,” Keating added.

  “Do the best you can. Just remember that strategy sessions and case updates are between you two and that woman from the DA’s office, period. And me, of course. Anybody else, it’s on a need-to-know basis only.”

  As if they’d been broadcasting case findings over the airwaves. Burnell could be a pain in the ass sometimes. “Anything else?” Lou asked. “We’d like to get back on the case.”

  “Just that there’s going to be a lot of media interest in this. We have to balance the public’s desire for information against our need to run a meticulous investigation.”

  “Right.”

  “Evidence compromised is no evidence at all. You can leave the door open on your way out.”

  Lou waited until they were around the corner. “How’d he make it to captain anyway? Couldn’t have been charisma.”

  “Pass the test and kiss ass, Lou. That’s the ticket.”

  “Leaves you out of the running, doesn’t it?” Not that Keating had any aspirations in that direction anyway as far as Lou was aware.

  “I could pass the test. All it takes is some work.”

  Lou grinned. “It’s the second part, Bryce. You’d never make the kiss-ass threshold.”

  Keating didn’t rise to the bait. Didn’t respo
nd at all in fact. He pushed ahead at a brisk clip in silence.

  “Something bothering you, Bryce?

  “Beyond the fact that we’ve got a third body?”

  “Hey, no need to bite my head off,” Lou grumbled. He decided that Keating must have gotten out of bed on the wrong side that morning. “Where are you off to?”

  “Macy’s. On the off chance that one of the salespeople remembers seeing a lone man lurking around on Saturday afternoon. Want to come along?”

  Lou shook his head. “I’ve done my bit with the clothing stores, thank you. I’ll see if I can’t squeeze some information out of Malkin.”

  Lou found Malkin pouring coffee into a mug shaped like a skull. “You want some?” the coroner asked.

  The coffee in the coroner’s office was notoriously bad. Lou half suspected they made it with formaldehyde instead of water. “No, thanks.” He eyed the mug. “It doesn’t bother you drinking from that?”

  “Never really thought about it before, but no. And it’s a surefire way to keep people from using my cup.” He set the Pyrex coffee pot back on the burner. “You’re here about the body we just picked up, right? I won’t have the preliminary report for at least another day.”

  “Give me your impressions, top of your head.”

  “That’s not science, Lou.”

  “I understand that. But this is an important case. I won’t hold you to it.”

  Malkin took a sip of coffee. “What is it you want to know?”

  “How long she’s been dead, for one thing.”

  “You know that’s not easy—”

  “Approximately, Earl. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Thirty-six to forty-eight hours, give or take.”

  So the chances were she’d been killed right away. “Strangled like the others?” Lou asked.

  “Appears that way. Now let me get to work or I’ll never get the report to you.”

  “I need to take a look at the bathing suit,” Lou said.

  “It’s still on the corpse.”

  Lou nodded.

  Malkin raised a thin eyebrow. “You aren’t going kinky on me, are you?”

  “She apparently tried on a pink bikini last week at Macy’s. I want to know if it’s the same suit he dressed her in.”

  “I was wondering about the clothing. The others have been dressed to the nines. Come on.” Malkin lead Lou to the tile and stainless-steel room down the corridor where the newly arrived bodies were catalogued. “She’s on the far table.”

  Lou wasn’t excited about lifting the sheet to look at a dead woman in a bikini. Maybe he should have invited Maureen Oliver to do it; after all, she seemed to know clothes. Or Kali, since the DA’s office was so interested in this crime.

  He peeled back the sheet, noting what he could of the fabric and cut of the bathing suit. Pink, many shades, like the tie-and-dye projects Nikki had done in high school. Tie-and-dye. How appropriate. He wondered if the killer had had the same thought.

  Back in the car, he called Carla O’Neill and asked her to describe the pink bikini Ruby Wings had tried on at Macy’s.

  “V-neck, thin straps,” she said. “It was a mottled material. Tie-dye, as I recall.”

  The same goddamn suit. And their killer was probably gleeful as hell at the joke.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lou didn’t watch much in the way of talk shows. But when he’d read in the paper that Al Gomez was going to be on the Bill McDonald show that afternoon, he’d made note of it. Not only was Gomez on the short list of people who knew the details of the Bayside Strangler murders, he had a personal interest in seeing Owen Nelson fall flat on his face. Maybe it was a stretch to think Gomez would resort to murder. Keating thought so. But Lou wasn’t ready to toss the idea aside just yet.

  Now, at a quarter till four, Lou had fifteen minutes to find a television. He finally decided on The Watering Hole, owned by an ex-cop and frequented by many of Lou’s co-workers. It was nearby, and as Lou recalled from the couple of times he’d been there, it had a television. At four o’clock in the afternoon, he didn’t imagine he’d have a lot of competition for the remote.

  He was right about the television but wrong about the competition. There were only three other patrons in the place, but they were glued to a show featuring scantily clad teenage girls. Lou slid onto a bar stool and ordered a beer.

  “Hey, Lou, haven’t seen you around much. Not like your partner, who practically makes this place his second home.” Pat had been on the force when Lou first started. Took a bullet to his shoulder in a domestic dispute and decided there were better ways to earn a living. Lou wasn’t sure he’d found one of them, however.

  “Yeah, well, Bryce has his own style.” Lou paid for the beer. “I was hoping to catch an Al Gomez interview at four. What are the chances of convincing those three that television sex will rot their brains?”

  “Not a problem. They’re not even regulars, just some dentists in town for a convention.”

  The three men weren’t happy about the switch. They finished their drinks and left. Lou moved down the bar to a seat with a clearer view of the television.

  McDonald introduced Gomez and started off the segment with a rehash of the Bayside Strangler murders and the Davis trial. Gomez looked every bit the role of slimeball lawyer in his fancy, double-breasted suit and bow tie. He was in his element, yammering nonsense about minority convictions, death penalty abuses and police transgressions. If there was one thing worse than a lawyer, it was a manipulative, self-serving lawyer. And Gomez fit the description to a T.

  He talked rapidly, seeming never to pause for a breath, and managed to get in a couple of digs at Owen Nelson as well as broad praise for Tony Molina. The discussion then turned to the recent spate of murders. Gomez had plenty to say about that, too, some of it inaccurate and highly speculative, most of it inflammatory.

  Fifteen minutes into the program, Lou had about had his fill of Gomez. Only the fact that he hadn’t finished his beer kept Lou from heading for the door. He’d half tuned out, wondering if he should stop for take-out or brave an attempt at pork chops in the kitchen, when Gomez said something that brought Lou back to the present with a jolt.

  “Did you catch that?” Lou asked.

  “Catch what?” Pat was drying glasses at the other end of the bar.

  “What that jerk Gomez just said.”

  “Wasn’t listening. What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘in light of the third murder.’”

  “What third murder?”

  “Precisely.”

  They’d been very careful over the airwaves not to mention the victim or any of the details about the most recent murder. And given the location of the crime scene, interest from the press had been minimal. Bodies turned up in that part of the city with alarming frequency.

  So how had Gomez known this latest murder was connected to the other two?

  Lou put his beer aside. “Where’s this program filmed, any idea?”

  “San Francisco. One Embarcadero Plaza. I know cuz my wife’s niece works in the same building.”

  “Thanks.” Lou paid for his beer.

  “Hey, don’t be such a stranger from now on, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Pat. See you around.”

  Lou headed across the Bay Bridge against the afternoon commute. Traffic was still bad, but the distance was short. He walked into the station’s outer office at five minutes before the hour.

  A young man sat behind the desk. “Can I help you?”

  Lou showed his badge. “I’d like to talk to Al Gomez.”

  “There’s no one here—”

  “He’s today’s guest on the Bill McDonald program.”

  “They’re in the middle of—”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “This isn’t how we usually—”

  “Let me know as soon as they’re finished in the studio.”

  The young man seemed flustered. He made a call, covered the mouthpiece and whispered into t
he phone. All Lou was able to make out was, “yeah, the police.” But whoever he’d checked with must have given the go-ahead, because ten minutes later Lou was ushered down a hallway and into a tiny, bright room where Gomez sat removing pancake makeup from his face.

  “You need it on television,” Gomez explained defensively. “Otherwise you fade into nothing.” He was a big man. Not tall, but solidly built and carrying probably forty pounds over his optimal weight. His suit looked expensive and fit him as though it had been cut just for him. Defending slime apparently paid well.

  Lou introduced himself. “I’d like to talk to you a minute.”

  “Official business?”

  What did Gomez think? That Lou was a fan? “I’ve got a couple of questions, is all.”

  Gomez smoothed his oily hair, then nodded toward the door. “Mind stepping outside? I’m dying for a cigarette.”

  “This real killer you keep alluding to,” Lou asked when they were standing on the open-air landing, “the one who you claim is responsible for the Bayside Strangler murders—do you have any proof he exists?”

  Gomez pulled a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. “It’s not my job to offer proof.”

  “It’s not your job to make unsubstantiated accusations either.”

  “Certainly you didn’t make a special trip here to discuss the scope of my job?”

  “I came because I’m trying to find a killer and I thought you might be able to help.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  Lou hadn’t imagined it possible, but he disliked Gomez more in person than at a distance. “It doesn’t bother you that innocent women are being killed?”

  “It apparently doesn’t bother you that innocent men are being executed.”

  “You honestly believe Davis was innocent?”

  Gomez flicked ash on the cement. “Tell me again why you’re here, detective.”

  “We’ve got a copycat killer prowling around out there—”

  “You’ve got a killer out there, all right, but he’s no copycat.”

  “It’s someone who knows the details of the Bayside Strangler murders,” Lou said, ignoring the interruption. “That’s a very short list, and your name is on it.”