by Nancy Bush
“Give me a minute.” Impatiently, she tried Gretchen again. No answer. When the cell went to voice mail, she said tersely: “I’m at Olivia Dugan’s address. There’s been a homicide.” She rattled off the address, then hung up and re-called George. When she failed to rouse him, she phoned dispatch and told them who she was and that she needed to talk to D’Annibal directly.
The lieutenant called her back in less than three minutes.
“Detective?” he asked.
“Who did you assign to Olivia Dugan?” she demanded. “Do we know where she is?”
“The missing Zuma employee?”
“Yes.”
A pause. Then, “You’re at her address?” He inhaled a long breath.
“Pretty sure. What the hell’s going on? Want me to pound on her door? Is she there? Her car’s here.”
“She left earlier today. Walking. With a backpack.”
“Lieutenant,” September asked carefully. “Who’s following her?”
“Your brother.”
“He’s undercover on the Cordova drug czar case,” she said automatically.
“He’s out of that. Arrests are coming down and he needed to leave. I put him on Dugan’s trail this afternoon. I’m expecting his call.”
“I’ve got a dead man lying in front of her apartment door.”
“Okay. Okay . . . I’ll order a warrant to search her place and the victim’s. l’ll let you know when they come through. You think this guy’s connected to her?”
“He seems to be the next-door neighbor.” September was having a little trouble processing all this. Her brother was following Olivia Dugan?
Waters was watching her, waiting for her to get off the phone.
D’Annibal said, “Let me know when the ME’s there.”
“Just arrived,” September said, seeing the medical examiner’s white van turn into the parking lot.
“I’ll call you back when I know something more here.” And he was off.
September hung up as Waters asked, “What do you want to do?”
Without answering him, she placed another phone call. When it went to voice mail, she stated hotly, “Auggie. Pick up your goddamn phone. I’ve got a dead body at Olivia Dugan’s place. Call me back. NOW!”
Chapter 9
In the dark Detective August Rafferty tested the twine wrapped around the bedposts and debated his next move. She’d tied him fairly tightly, but he believed, if he tried hard enough, he could work himself free. After all, she was an amateur at this; he’d known that from the first moment she’d waggled that gun at him, staring at him through hollow, hazel eyes, her face white, drawn and horror-filled, as if she’d seen the devil himself.
He’d known who she was. Olivia Margaux Dugan. Employed by Zuma Software. Missing since she’d found the bodies after her lunch break.
He’d been instructed by his boss, Lieutenant D’Annibal of the Laurelton Police Department, to cruise by her address and check if she was home. While cruising, he’d seen her lam out on foot, carrying a backpack, scurrying down the street and into a café. He’d reported to D’Annibal that he was following her, then had driven past the bistro for a quick reconnoiter, and was circling back when he saw her suddenly exit the bistro, dart across the street, and enter the coffee shop. He’d cranked the Jeep around, but of course, there’d been no place to park. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, he’d driven slowly down the street, momentarily double-parking with an eye on his rearview, then had driven farther, jockeyed around, turned back and, lo and behold, a spot had opened up right in front of the place.
Lucky.
He called D’Annibal again right before his cell quit on him and said he was going to tail her and that he would phone again when he could. Then he cruised right into Bean There, Done That and ordered up a coffee. His quarry was in line ahead of him, jittery, but trying hard to conceal it. She got her drink and sat down and after he got his, he strolled out toward his car, head turned about forty-five degrees, keeping her in his peripheral vision.
And then suddenly she was right there. He pretended to be getting into his vehicle and she suddenly slid into the passenger seat, with a gun, and ordered him to drive.
Wow. So he let her take him “hostage.” Seemed like a good way to keep tabs on her.
Now, he was wondering about the wisdom of those actions. He hadn’t been able to contact D’Annibal again, and the department had since put Liv’s picture on television. An expected move by the police, he supposed, because no one, not even D’Annibal, knew he’d connected so tightly with her.
He sighed, staring up at the ceiling. If he catalogued his exploits since being a detective, this move might be number one in the lame-brained column. Sure, he was open, brash, full of piss and vinegar, as his older sister, July, was wont to say, and burdened with oodles of arrogance that had gotten him into more than a few scrapes as a kid and had helped him develop a serious hero complex as an adult—and had been the ruin of several romantic relationships—but he was generally sane. Generally able to make good choices.
He shook his head at himself. Maybe it was because he’d just gotten off a long-term, joint drug-and-gang task force with the Portland PD and had been happy to move out of his fake address—the house where he’d been living under his alias, Alan Reagan—and hopefully back to his own home. He’d been at the fake house for nearly a year while he’d infiltrated a really nasty, homegrown drug czar’s clutch. Geraldo “Jerry” Cordova was a pain-in-the-ass small-time dealer who’d connected with a couple of Portland gangs and thought he was Scarface now. Auggie had helped root him out, along with some seriously bad dudes, and as soon as that had come down he’d beat feet as Alan Reagan, planning to pick up his possessions at the house, such as they were, and get out. Then D’Annibal had called as he was checking on his duplex on the outskirts of Laurelton. (He was in the process of evicting the tenants on the other side as he was the owner of the building and they were young, loud and had a tendency to leave the tail end of one monstrous truck or another over his driveway. Pissed him off, no end.)
D’Annibal had explained about the lovely Ms. Dugan and, as Auggie headed over to her apartment for some further reconnaissance, she suddenly appeared, backpack over her shoulder, heading quickly away from the premises.
He’d immediately done a quick assessment of his own state of readiness. He was good to go. He hadn’t yet bothered with peeling his wallet from beneath the driver’s seat where he’d strapped it with duct tape along with his Glock, a precaution he employed whenever he was playing the part of Al Reagan, or whomever, as he couldn’t afford for anyone to find out his true identity.
So, he’d followed her. He knew from D’Annibal that she was Olivia Margaux Dugan, an employee at Zuma Software where a gunman had come in around one P.M. and shot all the employees on the first floor. Except Ms. Dugan, who hadn’t been there, but who had apparently returned to the crime scene and phoned 911. D’Annibal told Auggie to go to her apartment and find out if she’d been there.
He’d been a little ticked off, eager to get back to his messy duplex with all his own things. The last thing he’d wanted was to have to maintain his false identity at this damned, near empty house. It was Alan Reagan’s place, in case anybody came looking, a house really owned by the Laurelton PD that had been used for various reasons, the last being a safe house for a wealthy criminal’s abused wife and children. That asshole was firmly behind bars now, and so Auggie had used the place as his new home when he started surveilling, and then finally working for, Cordova, just in case the gang boss came looking, which he never did.
When Liv had suddenly jumped in Auggie’s Jeep and told him to drive, he’d unconsciously headed to the house. He’d decided to go with the whole hostage thing and though he was both irked and amused at being tied up, he was intrigued with his attractive and self-proclaimed nutso female captor. He didn’t quite know what to make of her.
Not that she wasn’t screwed up; he could certainly see
that. But then, who wasn’t?
Only now he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
He turned his head to listen. She was sleeping on that crappy couch. How, he couldn’t imagine. He felt jazzed and antsy. Earlier, when she’d left him tied to the oven, he’d been aware that he could probably drop his fetters; he’d almost done it, thinking he could call D’Annibal and give him an update. But he wasn’t certain he would be able to put the twine back in place without her knowing, so he’d passed on the opportunity, at least for the meantime.
He thought about his cell phone. He’d lied to her about the charger. It was here, in his glove box. He’d meant to charge the battery as soon as he got home; he wasn’t much on car chargers, had heard they weren’t good for the phone. But he carried an extra charger in the glove box, so if he worked himself free he could certainly get the thing working. Could call D’ Annibal. But did he want to give up his act yet? He wasn’t sure.
Hmmm. Had to think about that. If she found the charger, she could plug in the phone herself and if someone called him from the department, the jig could be up anyway.
He wondered if he could get her to fall for the bathroom trick again. Not that he couldn’t use every opportunity to relieve himself, but there was no emergency imminent yet.
Again . . . hmmm . . .
She needed to go to the police. He believed in her innocence. She was paranoid, too, but maybe there was something worth checking out. If he stayed with her, could he get her to trust him a little? He felt a tweak of interest in her and was annoyed with himself. Down boy . . .
Having decided that waiting was a better option, Auggie closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, at least for a few minutes. He wasn’t certain what was going to happen next, but he might as well be prepared.
J.J., the medical examiner, scrutinized the body and made plans for it to be shipped to the county coroner’s office. He glanced at September, who was watching from the sidelines. “Helluva day, huh?” he said.
“Helluva day,” she answered. This was the second time today they’d been at a homicide together, and it was looking like the crimes were related. Her cell phone buzzed and she answered it to learn that they had the warrant to enter 20B, Olivia Dugan’s apartment, and 21B, Trask Martin’s. Hanging up, she signaled Waters, who then kicked in the door to 20B.
She and Waters did a quick run-through of Dugan’s premises. The place had that unlived-in feel of someone who had few personal possessions. The closet looked as if Olivia had been home and ransacked it, and one of the drawers was half-open. September plugged in the answering machine on the way out, but any messages had been wiped off. She and Waters then headed back outside where J.J. and his crew were covering the body they’d lifted onto a gurney. September was getting ready to go to 21B when a woman pushed herself past the group at the bottom of the stairs, to their shouts of dismay, then barreled past one of the techs climbing the stairs, who yelled, “Hey!” at her as she practically threw him aside in her headlong rush.
September stepped in her way before she got to the gurney. The frantic young woman clawed at her as she tried to get to the body, screaming, “Trask! Trask! Oh, God. Trask!”
“This is a crime scene!” September clipped out, grabbing hold of her flailing arms. “Who are you?”
“Is that . . . is that . . . please, God, tell me it’s not Trask!”
“He’s not been identified yet,” September declared, though it was a pretty good guess it was indeed Trask Martin who lived at the end of the balcony.
“My . . . my apartment,” she murmured, looking past September toward the door to the end unit. “I’m Jo.” Then she slumped as if her bones had suddenly turned to liquid.
September caught her, then pulled her aside as Journey and his team wheeled the gurney toward the stairs. Jo suddenly jumped forward and pulled at the cover, exposing one male, bare foot. Seeing it, she started crying and ripping at her hair. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” She jerked around, her eyes wild. “I’ve got to go with him. I’ve got to be with him!”
“You live in apartment 21 on this level?” September asked her.
“Yes. With Trask!”
“May we go inside?”
“No.” She was stumbling after the body, crying, but now she turned toward the door to her unit. “He needs shoes,” she said, staggering past September and through the door to 21B.
September followed her to the entry and looked inside. She could smell the leftover scent of marijuana.
“You can’t come in!” Jo declared.
“I have a warrant. I’m just being polite.” Jo was crying and hiccuping, and September added, “I don’t care about the dope smoking. But I need to find who did this.”
“Okay,” Jo said, gulping. “I—I—is he okay? He’s gonna be okay, all right, yeah?” Her eyes were pleading.
September’s silence was enough of an answer. Jo stifled another scream and fled into the bedroom, ripping through the shoes in the closet and pulling out a pair of men’s worn leather boots. “He never wears shoes. He needs to wear shoes. I always tell him, ‘Trask. Put on some shoes. You never know when you might need them.’” Tears puddled in her eyes. “He needs them. . . .” Then she ducked her head and sank to the ground and the tears started dropping onto her chest.
“Would you like me to take you to the coroner’s office?” September asked gently.
She flinched at the word.
“His name’s Trask?”
“Trask Burcher Martin.” She gulped and looked at September. “Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Rafferty.”
“Who did this? What happened?”
“There was a shooting. That’s all we know, so far.”
“Why? Why . . . was he in front of Liv’s door? Is she there?”
“No.”
“Did she do it?” she asked in a horror-filled whisper.
“When we get something, we’ll let you know.” September’s heart clutched. Here, she’d been upset with D’Annibal and her brother for keeping her in the dark, but what if something had happened to Auggie?
“Do you think these boots will work?” she asked September seriously.
September fought back her own rising anxiety, “They’ll be fine,” she assured her, then held out a hand to help Jo to her feet.
Liv tried to surface from a deep sleep. Uncomfortable sleep. Sleep surrounded by nightmare fragments that swept in and out of her consciousness. Fingers of dream fog that beckoned her reluctantly forward.
Through the mist she saw Aaron . . . his quirk of a smile . . . his joking mouth. He opened that mouth to speak but it grew into a dark hole where black blood started spilling toward her. And there was Paul de Fore, with only half a head, leering and jolting forward on stiff robot legs.
She wanted to scream but couldn’t. There were rags in her mouth. Pieces of something that kept her mute. A gag. But then the gag was over a man’s mouth. Her hostage. Auggie. But his eyes burned with an angry blue flame. Liv turned away, sobbing.
A cat strolled through her legs. A very fat cat with yellow tiger stripes and a long, curving tail that switched and twitched. She reached for it, but it too disappeared into the sneaking fog.
Cat, she called. Cat!
She was screaming. Screaming at the top of her lungs but the cat was gone and couldn’t hear her. CAT!
“HEY!!!” a voice yelled loudly.
She jerked as if pulled by strings, her eyes flying open. She could hear the echo of her own voice fading away.
“HEY! WAKE UP!”
Auggie. Auggie was yelling at her.
“Stop,” she told him, struggling to her feet. “Stop yelling. I’m awake.”
“You were dreaming. Whimpering,” he called out.
She struggled to get her bearings, then finally drew a breath and walked to the open doorway of his bedroom. She could just make out his form in the dim light.
“You said ‘cat,’” he told her.
“I know.”
“What does that mean?”
“I was dreaming about a cat.”
“Do you have one?”
“No. It was just something I said to Aaron.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I had a cat. A very fat cat. It was a joke, of sorts.”
“A joke?”
Liv turned away. Sadness and fear vied for control of her senses and she felt tears form in her eyes. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Making a worse mess of things.
“Hey,” he said, but she walked quickly away, to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and drank half of it down in two gulps. It stemmed the tide of tears. For now, at least.
“I could use a drink!” his voice found her from the other room. She poured another glass and took it back to him. A part of her just wanted to untie him and have him drink it himself, and she was debating that, when he said, “And another trip to the bathroom.”
That did it. She just didn’t care anymore. She set down the water on the TV stand, untied him, then gestured for him to have at it, whatever it was. Then she returned to the couch, where she sank into the cushions and stared straight ahead.
He came into the room, rubbing his wrists, eyeing her speculatively in the near dark. There was a crack in the curtains where a strip of moonlight crept in, and it was enough for her to see his expression. He looked confused.
“I don’t care what you do,” she said, before he could speak. “Call the police. Run away. Do the chicken dance. I just don’t care.”
“Tell me what the dream was about.”
“This isn’t about the dream,” she snapped back. “Not in any way I can explain. Just . . . I don’t care.”
For the first time, he seemed at a loss for words. Well, good. She was sick of talking to him anyway. “Why are you called Auggie?” she asked him again.
“Because I liked dogs. My Dad called me Auggie-Doggy.”
“Is that true?”
“Why would I lie about it?”
She shook her head in frustration, looked away from him, then sighed. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this and growing sorrier by the minute.”
