by K. T. Tomb
“Yessir,” she replied and hurried off.
The detectives waited about ten minutes before she returned, refilling their coffee mugs and water glasses. Each detective was beginning to believe that this was going to be one of the longer nights that they could remember. They each grabbed a case file and began scanning through the papers as fast as they could.
“Right here,” Strong said. “It’s right here. Quote: ‘no sign of forced entry was found at any of the windows or doors.’”
“So the person who did this had a key,” Hoya said.
“Get a list of every person who has a key to the Mancini AND the Uplandsson homes.”
This was the break they had been waiting for. There was a good chance that this could lead them to the killer.
***
Mike finished up the short-list of groceries.
He checked his phone for any new texts while standing in line. Rick was meeting him at his parents’ condo in a half-hour. He had initially stopped by, he’d realized they had no food and immediately went out to the grocery store. He hadn’t told his parents that he would be staying at the condo. He wasn’t ready to tell them what had happened. He’d called Erin’s parents to let them know, and to let them know that once everything was settled down with the police, he would start planning the funeral. He, Erin, and both of their families were Catholic and they would need to start planning the proper funeral. Luckily, Mike and Erin purchased life insurance shortly after being married, so most of the bills would be taken care of and there would be replacement income from her policy for a while, so he had all the time he needed off from work. He shouldered the weight of everything that needed to be done, shrugging until the figurative yoke settled on his shoulders, and he realized that it was a blessing and a curse. At least he had a distraction to keep him from wallowing.
On the other hand, I wish I didn’t have all this shit going on so I could just sit and… figure things out, he thought to himself. Once Rick gets here, maybe we can start figuring out how to bury the man who ruined our families.
He paid for the ten frozen pizzas, eggs, cheese, ground beef, tortilla shells, bananas, O.J, bread and beer, and walked back to the truck. He loaded the groceries into the back seat and swore under his breath as a stray banana fell on the ground. As he buckled his seatbelt, he remembered the last text he had gotten from Erin.
Going to bed, love. I can’t wait to see you! Hope you’re having a great time. Miss you.
Mike’s grief overwhelmed him again and he put his head in his hands, crying bitterly. The tears burned his eyes, and they ran hot and thick through his fingers. After a moment, he was all huffed out and he sat back up, rubbed a fist across his eyes, and fired the truck up and drove back to the condo. Duke greeted him at the door with the usual enthusiasm. Mike’s heart almost dropped through his stomach, onto the floor, when he noticed that Duke was curled up on the hoodie he had brought from home. Erin’s hoodie. She’d had so many. She loved this one so much. It’s one of the ones she had since high school when she worked at that little fast food joint back home. It seems like so long ago we were packing up the house, moving here… I remember that box of hoodies. It was one of the biggest boxes in the moving truck. Mike would put the hoodie in bed with him. He’d hoped to get some comfort from it, as well as keep the scent the same for Duke. It was very important to him that he try and keep his dog happy while everything was going on. I’m sure he knows something is up, but hopefully, I can help him get used to the idea of… of…Erin… not being around. Hopefully losing her doesn’t hurt him as much as it’s hurting me right now.
Mike fired up the oven and threw in one of the pizzas before leaning back and opening a beer. Busch Light. It was crappy, but it was cold and it was cheap and he could get a lot of it for a small amount of money. He could also drink them with near impunity—they rarely gave him a hangover. The beer was cold and it bubbled and fizzed pleasantly as he poured it down his throat. Pizza cooking, beer open, and with not much left to do at the moment, he sat down at the kitchen table, and for the first time that day began processing what had happened. Rick arrived after Mike was through beer number two, cracking number three and taking a sip. He was in a T-shirt and jeans, and his old shit-kicker cowboy boots.
“Hey man,” Mike said softly. “You’re two behind, by the way,” he added and tossed Rick a beer. Rick cracked it open, chugged it down and said, through a coughing fit.
“Now I’m only one behind,” he said and slugged down another.
“What do you want to do?” Mike asked, just as the pizza timer went off.
“I want to drink,” Rick replied. “I want to drink until I can’t remember my name and I want to drink until this whole thing feels like a bad, terrible joke. And then I want to wake up, hung over, and drink even more,” he finished.
“Sounds like a good plan for today, and definitely for tomorrow. But what do you want to do after that?” Mike asked.
“I want to… I don’t want to think about what I want to do after that,” Rick replied.
“Well, here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that we know who did this. I don’t have any idea who that might be at the moment, but I definitely think that, between the two of us, we can find them. And bury them so deep no one ever thinks to look for them. I want to see whoever did this with a bullet in their head,” he said angrily.
“Mike… that’s… that’s not an option,” Rick said.
“Hear me out. We’ve hunted together, a lot. Think about it. We’ve shot deer and turkey out of places no one else ever even thought to try for them. We’ve hunted back-country mountains that we got to on foot that otherwise required a helicopter ride because we were stubborn, persistent, and patient.”
“Yeah Mike, we’re good at hunting. We’re really good at it. But that doesn’t mean we can just take matters into our own hands. It doesn’t mean we can… can take over for the cops. Besides, what would happen to the dogs? They already lost their moms. If we get caught, we end up in jail. Forever. If the person we’re looking for flees Cali, and we end up following them, and kill them in that state, we could end up facing the death penalty. How does that help anyone?” Rick finished, unable to believe that his best friend could feel so angry that he might actually kill another human. For him, hunting was about experiencing a communion with nature and putting food on his table. It never was, and never would be, about the kill. He knew Mike felt the same way. The fact that he could even be thinking about putting those skills to use in order to take another person’s life flabbergasted him. And that was the situation he was facing here.
“Rick, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else to feel right now. All I can think is that…is that the cops…the closure they can give me…it’s not enough. I need something to focus on. Hunting season is over. I can’t get to my happy places right now. I could go and sit, sure, but what’s the point of that? At least this gives me something to do. What if we just…what if we just try and track this…this…monster down and then give whatever we find to the cops? That way I can at least feel like we had a more important part in finding this person…what do you think?” Mike asked.
“I think… I think that we need to drink on it,” Rick replied. “I like my original plan. We get hammered. Then we beat our hangover by getting hammered again. We continue doing that until we’re too sick to drink. Then we can think about this… plan… of yours more. Can we just do that for now?”
“That does not sound bad right now. That does not sound bad right now at all,” Mike said and finished his beer. “Pizza’s done. Let’s chow down on that and then get hammered.”
They proceeded to do just that, and when they could barely sit up straight, they made and finished another pizza, and passed out.
Chapter Eighteen
“Yes, any mid-size will do,” the man said to the clerk behind the counter.
“Okay, if you would follow me this way, please.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He typically didn’t say much. To anyone. He followed the clerk to a Camry, took a few pictures of it and got in. He took the pictures because once, he returned a car after a job and the rental company had tried to bill him a few months later for a few dings and scratches. Luckily he was able to beat the charge and not pay the bill, but from then on, he always took pictures of the outside of any vehicle he rented. That way he always had proof that any damage done was not him at all. He drove to the nearest motel, booked a room, paid cash for five nights and passed out on the bed. He woke up in the morning and stretched, hating that he did not have the ability to rent a room at a four or five-star place. Dropping cash at a place like that would get him noticed, and a credit card would leave a paper trail. A paper trail would mean that if anything happened, he would be traceable. Cash was noticed, and a killing, or a credit card paper trail and killing… both put him at risk of being caught. The biggest issue with not staying at a nice hotel was the crappy mattress and crappy pillows that always put wrinkles in his back. He put on a pot of coffee and sat down on the couch with a cup of the black elixir, his hands at the small of his back trying to force some of the kinks out of his back. He caught the morning news and then opened up his briefcase to review what he knew about Mr. River Ryans.
“So River, what’re you doing in New Orleans?” the man chuckled to himself. “No matter now, cause you won’t be doing it for much longer.”
He wondered at the type of woman that would stoop low enough to contact a stranger for sex when they were married. That’s what bothered him the most, and that’s what incentivized him to take the job. That, and the fat payday at the end. He checked over his gear, and put on a nondescript button-down, short-sleeved shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. He knew it was going to be a long and humid, very hot day. He reviewed his files once more, and decided that, if he were the target, he would be staying on Bourbon Street.
“All those people, all those nice hotels, good food… if I had his kind of money and… particular talents… that’s where I’d be. Well, not like I don’t have his kind of money… but if I could spend it all the way I wanted, I certainly would be staying on Bourbon Street. Nowhere else,” he said aloud to himself.
He got in the Camry and drove down to Bourbon Street. He parked in a parking garage, where he got out, and hung his camera around his neck, and walked out onto Bourbon Street. The first step, the first thing he ever did was photograph the area he planned to launch his search in. Photographing the area allowed him to learn the area, and he could compare photos he took himself to street maps. That way he knew where the best places to set up would be. He would know where the best shooting lanes were, where the getaway routes would be, and once he pinpointed those important things, he could then pinpoint the target. Sometimes, he would set up where he knew he would get an excellent shot. Other times, he could not get the perfect set-up together, and he would have to spot shoot a target, which would mean that he would set up on a regularly used path and wait for the target to come through, in which case he would have a much more difficult shot.
And if I’m lucky, I’ll get a few photos of the target as well.He could not believe the different blends of architecture up and down the street. The smells overwhelmed him as well. Fish. I hate fish. Doesn’t matter if it’s salmon or catfish. It all smells… dirty. He began to snap away. Later he would review everything, and figure out the best place to set up a nest. Once he had that placed, he would program the scope to take real-time photos of any shot he fired. It was a high-tech set-up, but it offered him the ability to provide confirmation without compromising himself trying to get close enough for a photo of a dead man. That meant he needed clear shooting lanes, and he would have to find a place that would allow him to see every second of the shot clearly. He would spend hours finding the perfect spot, through the use of street-level maps, satellite photos, and the photos he took from the ground. For example, he could find the hypothetically perfect place to take the shot, but it would actually be cluttered with someone hanging sports banners off an apartment balcony.
***
The sunlight came streaming through the window.
Somewhere along the way, I had failed to close the full-length blinds. Sloppy, considering she was married. That night had been one of the best nights I’d had in a long time. Sara was not only insatiable but apparently had very few boundaries. Dominant and submissive, she fit into either role perfectly. She said, at one point, that she had so much pent up energy from getting almost nothing at home, that she wanted me to push, and find, every single one of her boundaries. We certainly did our best to find each and every one of them.
After the shower, we had laid in bed for a while, the naked heat of her body eventually getting to be too much for me. I run hot as it is, and I hardly ever sleep with blankets on, but with the AC blasting, she was cold, so she pulled the blankets over us. I went to stand by the window. That’s when Sara surprised me and opened the sliding door. Completely naked, she pulled me out onto the balcony and we did it on the bistro set with her pressing a hand over my mouth until we were both satisfied. I yawned and stretched, pleased by the fact that, not only was I still naked, but also that I felt great. I couldn’t wait to go down on her with my mouth again. She had one of the softest, sweetest pussies I’d ever had the pleasure of pleasuring, and I wanted to wake her up with my mouth, kissing, teasing, tongue playing until she could not last a minute longer,
I turned over, already getting rock hard and, to my dismay, saw the empty rumpled bed covers. In her place was a scribbled message on the hotel room notepad. I snatched it up, irritated, deflating in seconds. It was an apology and a request to meet her in the same place again that night at 7:30 p.m.
Well, that makes things much simpler. Thank goodness she is not having the same issues with this that I am. A woman who can do… the things she did last night, wake up and be gone, leaving a note…incredibly dangerous. Incredibly dangerous for anyone, but especially for a man like me. Detachment is so… crucial… to what I do. Not sure if I remember what it’s like to be the one feeling… rejected. Wow, that is quite the feeling. One I haven’t experienced in a while.
I smiled to myself as I showered, that time alone and suddenly realized that I missed her closeness, but I quickly shrugged off the sentiment and got dressed. It was incredible to me how much more efficient a shower can be when I was the only the one using it. The shower lasted half the time or less than when Sara was there with me. In the lobby, I asked the concierge for a breakfast recommendation and he sent me to a corner bistro not far from the hotel. I decided to walk again. The sights and sounds of the city, even in the morning, overwhelmed me. I loved that before ten a.m. I could hear jazz from a variety of different clubs. That there were people still reveling from the night before. That there were people having mimosas with their breakfasts, with clearly nothing better to do than get slammed. I wasn’t judging them. I loved it. It was that time of year where people were getting winter-crazy everywhere else. Cabin fever was getting old and people came to this city to blow winter out of their veins the way March blew winter out of the air. Frankly, I was jealous that my mind was occupied by a woman—for the first time in a long time—and I couldn’t just sit, sip champagne and lose myself in food and alcohol.
I ordered my first cup of coffee as I looked over the menu and tried to decide what I would do that day. The description of a catfish omelet captivated me and I decided to order one. I had never had fish in the morning before, but what did it matter—I was in New Orleans and catfish was a Louisiana staple.
Needless to say, the food was delicious. The catfish had been seasoned and blackened, then folded into the eggs that comprised the omelet and it was a phenomenal experience. The fish had been so fresh that all I tasted was the clean bite of the meat and the soft pillows of fluffy egg. I finished my plate, sat back and sighed, satisfied before pouring myself another cup of coffee and relaxing to relive every minute of the night before in my mind’s eye.
It was unbelievable to me that I was so hung up on a woman. It made her more attractive to me—that somehow I broke my own rule about physicality and emotion when it came to sex—mainly that everything stayed physical, and the emotions stayed out of it. There was no other option for me in my line of work. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. I paid the tab and decided that, since it was such a spectacular morning, I would spend some time wandering along Bourbon Street some more. I hadn’t really had the chance to explore much of it the day before. That’s what I get for spending the majority of my evening locked away with a hot piece of ass that can’t stop fucking.
I walked slowly along the avenue, with my mind wandering and my senses being bombarded by the sights and smells of the places I passed by. Peering into shops here and there and exchanging a greeting with the people I met along the way. Then, as I was crossing the street, I suddenly noticed something odd. There was a man on the other side of the street busying himself with taking pictures. I had seen the guy before, I remembered with a shock. He had strolled by the bistro right before I ordered breakfast and I watched him photograph what appeared to be the tops of the buildings lining the street. I watched him as I waited for a horse-drawn carriage to pass in front of me and noticed that not once did he seem to point the camera at anything I would have considered interesting, which was, I supposed, the same as what he was doing when I first noticed him. It could totally be normal that he was following along the same footpath I was too. Still, I had a nagging feeling, but I shook it off, deciding that people were odd, and that it was true that they only seemed to become odder every day.
