Deserving of Death (CJ Washburn, PI Book 1)

by James Paddock

  “I thought the two of you talked all the time.”

  She shook her head. “She calls me once a month. As a matter-of-fact I can set my watch by it. On the 25th of every month at 6:38 a.m. I can pick up my phone and wait for it to ring.”

  CJ just looked at her with his “I don’t get it,” face.

  “6:38 is the time I was born, Dad. January 25th.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can see her calling me at that time on my birthday, but why every month?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “When she first started doing it I thought it was cute, but now, after two years, it’s rather old, a bit immature if you ask me.”

  “She does love you.”

  “I know that, Dad. But why couldn’t I have a normal mother?”

  “Or a normal dad,” CJ added.

  “You are normal, except for the cop part.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “You know what I mean. Once a cop always a cop.”

  CJ laughed.

  “And I’m staying in this house surrounded by cops. What a nightmare.”

  “Stella’s not a cop.”

  “She appears to be turning into one being a cop’s secretary and girlfriend.”

  “Oh.”

  “I really like her by-the-way,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  “You planning on marrying her?”

  CJ smiled, surprised by the question. “That’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

  “If you do I want to be there. A regular wedding, no justice of the peace thing. She’s never had a wedding, right? Never been married?”

  “No.”

  “Then it has to be a real wedding with the dress, bridesmaids, the works.”

  CJ thought about his proposal to run off to Las Vegas and realized he’d have to rethink that entire scenario. Why couldn’t it just be simple? Why couldn’t anything with a woman be simple?

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll keep your advice in mind.”

  She took his arm and propped her head on his shoulder. “Good. It’d be weird, though, having a step-mother.”

  “You have a step-dad.”

  “That started out weird, but now he’s just Mom’s husband. And his children...” She made like sticking a finger down her throat. “I’m not claiming any relation to them, no way, shape or form.”

  “I understand,” he said, nodding his head.

  “Do you think Josh would come?” she said after a long silence.

  “To what?”

  “The wedding.”

  “Oh. I’ve no idea where your brother is,” CJ said.

  “I do.”

  There was a stretch of dead space while CJ digested the meaning of those two words. Trish must have sensed the sudden tension in his body. She straightened up, but held onto his hand.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Josh asked me not to tell you where he was, both you and Mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve always known where he was.”

  “You have?” CJ didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased. As he thought about it, he realized he shouldn’t be surprised. The two of them were always close. “Is he okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He’s fine.”

  “When did you last talk to him?”

  She thought about that for a few seconds. “In May, I think. Right at the end of the semester. He likes to check up on me to make sure his little sister is staying out of trouble.”

  CJ considered whether or not he wanted to know the answer to his next question before finally coming out and asking it. “Is he still angry?”

  “Of course he’s still angry, Dad.” She let loose of his hand and her voice went up an octave. “Hell, I’m still angry. You and Mom getting divorced wasn’t part of the big plan. We were a happy family and then we weren’t. It was like you guys flipped a switch without consulting us first. It came completely out of the blue. Sure, Mom was a bit weird but as long as she was our mom that was okay. Now she’s not only more weird, or weirder, if that’s a word, but she’s also someone else’s mom, and we have step-siblings who demand her immediate attention more than we ever did. And you started becoming weird, too, with quitting the police force and trying to start your own private eye business. You got obsessed with that and then the divorce happened and your children fell by the wayside. I sort of adapted, but Josh did not. That’s why he took off. He couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

  “So, where is he now? Does he have a good job? Is he married? What?”

  “Technically, as long as I don’t tell you where he is, I haven’t broken the promise. He has a very good job and no, he’s not married. He does have a girlfriend but I’ve never had the impression it was very serious.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “All I’ll say is, you’ll approve, despite what…”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I think you’ll approve.”

  “Despite what? Is there something he’s doing I might not like?”

  “Forget it Dad. I’ve said more than I should have and none of your police interrogation techniques are going to get anything more out of me.”

  “Even prying out your fingernails one by one?”

  She held out both hands so all the nails showed. “They’re in rather bad shape, so there’d be no loss.”

  He laughed and hugged her. She got up to go to the bathroom and he sat back thinking about all that he had just learned. As he thought, his gaze fell onto her cell phone on the coffee table. He looked up to where she’d disappeared and then snapped up the phone and searched for her address book. He scrolled to “W” but found no Washburn. He scrolled up to “J” and there it was, Josh, simple as that. He touched the name and the phone number displayed with a 303 area code. He turned his face away to avoid seeing the entire number long enough to memorized it, immediately feeling guilty for snooping. He cleared the phone to the home screen and put it back on the table. What would he do with Josh’s phone number, anyway?

  He went in to lie down next to Stella. She didn’t even stir.

  He stared at the ceiling thinking about the 303 area code; wondered what city it served.

  Chapter 40

  Stella awoke just before 1:30 p.m. announcing she wanted to run to her apartment for clothes. CJ put down the newspaper under which he was attempting to fall asleep. When he’d tried sleeping next to Stella, all he could do was think. Wasn’t much better with the newspaper. The previous three days and accompanying lousy nights were playing havoc on his body. He desperately needed to be doing something and running out with Stella sounded real good.

  “I could use some fresh clothes, too,” he said. “We could go by my place at the same time.”

  “You’re in a safe house for a reason,” Dave said. “To be safe. This guy could be just waiting for you to pop up.”

  “If he’s after anybody, it’s Trish. You stay here with her. Stella and I will go.”

  Trish turned off the TV soap that nobody was watching and dropped the remote on the coffee table. “You’re not going anywhere without me, Dad.”

  “Judge’s orders state that you’re to stay put,” Dave reminded CJ.

  “These are the same clothes I was wearing Friday at your house, Dave. You should be begging me to find something clean.”

  “There’s a washer and a dryer,” Dave said. “You can wash them.”

  “You’ve got clothes at my place,” Stella said. “I can grab everything that’s yours.”

  “We don’t want you going out alone, Stella,” Dave said.

  CJ had to agree with that.

  “Then you go with me,” she said to Dave. “Trish can stay here. What time did Dan say he’d be back?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “I only need one person with me,” CJ said.

  “And that would be me,” Trish reiterated.

  CJ opened his pal
m in agreement. “All I need is a witness that I don’t go out and dump a body in a dumpster. It’s not like the perp’s going to come after me. His purpose has been foiled. I’m beginning to not see the point in all this.”

  “The point is public perception for one,” Dave said, “and letting the perp know that you always have an escort in case he’s too stupid to realize his framing plan has been foiled. We don’t want him killing someone else in your name.”

  “I think we’ve already determined that this guy isn’t stupid,” CJ said. “I’d be willing to bet he knew what was going on before the press release.”

  “The bottom line is he has to be caught before he kills someone else, whether to frame you or otherwise. Prior to you climbing into the dumpster to check the pulse on his third victim, his kills were a month apart. When he got the grand idea to set you up, he killed three in under a week. As long as he knows you can no longer be framed, he’ll likely return to his previous schedule, giving us at least three weeks, if I’m figuring it right.”

  “What were the dates?” Stella asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like to know that, too,” Trish said.

  Dave stood, snatched the mess of newspaper under which CJ had been trying to snooze, and sat back down. “This morning’s paper summarized it all.” He sorted and restacked the pages until he found what he was looking for, scanned the article for a few seconds and then read the names out loud. “Brenda Radcliff, May 26; Mandi Frond, June 30; Rebecca Cling, July 28.”

  “Right at the end of each month,” CJ said. “There must be something significant about that.”

  “What it means is that we’ve got until August 25th, less than three weeks,” Trish said, staring at the calendar on her phone.

  “On what days of the week do they fall?” CJ asked her.

  “They were all on Saturdays.”

  “The last Saturday of every month. Our prime suspect, Tommy Clark, is off Thursdays and Fridays. Not very telling, but certainly possible. He spends those two days picking out and watching his victims. He kills her Friday night, dumps her body two or three in the morning, then goes home to put on his uniform and get ready for work. Maybe he likes to be part of the police force working the case that same morning, his way of returning to the scene.”

  “Great theories, but not enough for an arrest or a warrant. Not even enough to bring him in for questioning.”

  “I know,” CJ said. “We need a smoking gun with his finger prints on it.”

  “I thought they were all strangled,” Trish said.

  Stella rolled her eyes. “Another of your dad’s metaphors. Yes, they were all strangled.”

  Trish went silent as though embarrassed by her confusion. And then she started crying, pulling a tissue from her jeans pocket.

  Stella slid over next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “I was just thinking—” She sniffled and blew her nose. “I got this picture in my head of Maria Rodston—” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “—being strangled. She was only a year older than me, and my friend. Her poor baby; such a sweet little boy.” She looked up at her dad, blinked back more tears. “There was a memorial for her this morning. I should have been there.”

  There was nothing CJ could say to her. To Dave he said, “So, all we still know is that Clark could have done it.”

  “And so could have half the cops in Tucson,” Dave added, “as well as half the sheriff deputies in the county. Then there’s highway patrol and border patrol not to mention surrounding small community police departments. There’s also any civilian geek out there who knows how to hack into police servers and listen to radio traffic. What I’m trying to say is let’s not hang Clark just because he’s convenient and sort of fits the profile.”

  “You were the one who liked him for the killings when Lisa first came up with the names this morning.”

  “Yeah, and I got to thinking how I was hung by the media, the public and fellow blues based on testimony that contained nothing but fiction.”

  “What we’ve pulled up on Clark so far has been all fact.”

  “And all purely coincidental. Yes, I liked him for it, but for all the wrong reasons, primary of which was that he is friends with Ralph Bunko. I should be ashamed of myself. To avoid reusing your metaphor, what we need is the strangulation device with the killer’s DNA on it.”

  “That’s something I’ve never heard in the news,” Stella said. “What did he use to kill the women?”

  “At this point all the media has said is that they were strangled. I haven’t heard whether the weapon was left behind at the dump sites, or if the perp took it with him. I’m not even sure if the police investigators, that is Dan or now Bunko, or the FBI, have determined what was used. We’ll pose that question to Dan when he returns.”

  “Speaking of Dan returning, when might that be?” CJ asked.

  “No idea. Tried calling him about a half hour ago, went to voicemail.”

  CJ drummed his fingers on the table for a time and then said, “Why don’t you go ahead and take Stella for some clothes; give Trish and me some father-daughter time.”

  Dave considered it for some time before finally agreeing. “My gut doesn’t like it, but my head can’t come up with a reason why. You’re probably right that he knows he’s been foiled and has likely taken you off his radar; however, I want to remain in constant communications. I’ll call when we get to Stella’s and then again right after we leave. We might stop for groceries on the way back as there isn’t much here for dinner.”

  “Get some fish,” CJ said.

  “Fish. You mean like fish sticks, what?”

  “Chipotle,” Stella said. “I know what he wants.” She looked at Trish. “How about you, anything special?”

  Trish shrugged. “Fish is okay, I guess. Wouldn’t mind some peanut butter, strawberry jam and bread. How about some beer?”

  Trish caught CJ looking at her. “I’m old enough, Dad, so don’t give me that look.”

  He laughed. “I just never envisioned drinking beer with my daughter while eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  “There are probably a lot of things about me you might not have envisioned.”

  CJ opened his mouth and then looked up at Stella.

  “Don’t look at me. I could probably use a sandwich and beer myself, and whatever.”

  CJ blushed and the women slapped hands like they were on some kind of team together. Inside, though, he was pleased to see that they were bonding, even if at his expense.

  Chapter 41

  After Dave and Stella left, CJ laid down in an attempt to return to his earlier failed nap while Trish returned to the afternoon soaps. After a time he gave up because his mind wouldn’t shut off. The drone of the television in the next room didn’t help either.

  He plopped down on the sofa next to Trish.

  “How about we go out for a walk?” he said. “I don’t think that lake is very far away and this is our father-daughter time.”

  “I’d like to, but you aren’t supposed to leave the house.”

  “I don’t believe going out in the neighborhood really counts. It’s mainly staying away from places around Tucson where I might be spotted. If the perp is looking for me, it’ll be around my apartment, or my office, or where I shop for groceries. He’s not going to be near here because he doesn’t know where here is. As a matter-of-fact there’s nobody on the streets. This is very non-public for being a residential area.”

  She looked at him, considering his words.

  “I can’t sleep and just sitting around waiting is driving me crazy,” he added.

  “You do know it’s 2:20 in the afternoon and close to 110 degrees out there, don’t you, Dad? That’s why there’s nobody out. They’re smart and staying inside.”

  “It’s only about a tenth of a mile to the lake, and then it’s a small lake. Can’t be all that bad.”

  She turned off the TV and stood. “Fine. We
need to talk anyway.”

  They had a map of the neighborhood, which Dave had left on the kitchen counter. They peered at it and found a paved trail that meandered along behind rows of homes and that would take them to the lake. They stepped out, immediately spotting the trail entrance from the front door. CJ looked up and down the street, more as an automatic procedure than to actually look for something or someone suspicious. The streets were deserted, no more than a half dozen vehicles within sight. If he hadn’t been so exhausted he likely would have considered each of them before moving on and then, upon analyzing one, would have had second thoughts, would have pulled them both back inside, locked the doors, made phone calls. Instead, his brain registered the absolute lack of people, exactly as he’d expected, and concluded that all was well.

  They set out.

  It was more like a quarter mile to the lake and by the time they got there CJ realized it was, in fact, too hot, but he was enjoying his time with Trish. What she wanted to talk about was her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, the one who bailed when the press got wind that her father was suspected of being a serial killer.

  “We were actually talking about doing something more permanent,” she said.

  “Like marriage?” CJ said, trying to keep the shock out of his voice.

  “No, Dad. Not that permanent. We were considering living together, though we had discussed maybe doing the big M once we graduated.”

  “Ah. The big M.”

  “But now—”

  “But now he’s a scumbag, not the person you thought he was. He abandoned you.”

  “I like the word scumbag,” she said. “I like scumbag a lot.”

  “Do you still care about him?”

  “Oh hell no, Dad. The scumbag abandoned me. That boat has sailed, as they say. No second chances with me.”

  He gave her a one-arm hug. “Good for you.”

  “What I want to know is, how do you know when you’ve found the right one? I don’t want to make this mistake again.”

  CJ nodded his head and stepped aside for a big kid on a small bicycle, a towel around his neck. “That’s a damn good question.”