by Michael Omer
All this time, working with him, bending down to clean something that spilled on the floor, brushing against him while reaching for a lowball glass behind him, wearing that tight white waitress shirt, those black yoga pants… she was driving him nuts.
Not that he was missing out on action, no need to worry about him. Was there any night when he couldn’t pick from a wide selection of horny, lonely customers? Teens, MILFs, blondes, redheads, big tits, small tits, thin, curvy, black, white—his bed was rarely empty. It was just that Kyla was the Holy Grail, the Everest, the forbidden apple.
And now, finally. Finally! It seemed as if it was about to happen. A simple sentence, uttered as if it was the most casual, everyday occurrence in the world. “Hey,” she had said. “Want to drop by and fuck?”
He did.
And they were just locking the door to the pub, Fizz already imagining her body without her clinging waitress outfit, her ebony skin, those perky round tits, the cleft between her legs…
“Excuse me?” An unfamiliar voice intruded on his thoughts.
Fizz made sure the door was locked and turned around to face the man who had addressed them. A man, and a woman. Even before the man flashed the badge, Fizz knew what they were. Their arms hung a bit too far from their bodies; their eyes stared, unblinking, into his. These were cops.
He had no time for this. He was planning on having his face deep between Kyla’s thighs in about ten minutes.
“What’s up, Officers?” he said. “We’re closed.”
“I’m Detective Shor,” the woman said. “This is Detective Gladwin. We just want to ask a few questions.” She was fine looking—not even close to Kyla, but on a random night he wouldn’t kick her out of his apartment. She would probably be fun in bed. They could use her handcuffs.
“Yes?” he said in a testy voice, trying to make them realize that this wasn’t the best of times. Surely even detectives could understand that some moments had to be seized before they were gone. He exchanged looks with Detective Gladwin. He was a guy. He’d understand.
“Were you two here, this evening, around nine-thirty?” Detective Gladwin asked.
Apparently the man didn’t understand. Fizz sighed.
“Yes,” Kyla answered. “Our shift started at seven.”
“Did either of you serve this man?” Detective Shor asked, pulling out her phone and showing them the screen.
Kyla’s breath caught in her throat, and Fizz cursed inwardly. Was there ever a bigger turn off than seeing a dead man’s face? He glanced at the screen, about to say that he had never seen this man, Goodnight, Detectives, we have some urgent business to attend to… And then he realized he had seen him. Tonight, in fact.
And he could lie, say the guy wasn’t there that evening. He and Kyla could go to her place, tear off each other’s clothes, get on with licking and sucking and kissing… But this man was dead.
“I haven’t seen him,” Kyla said, her voice unnaturally high. She was freaked.
“He sat at the bar,” Fizz admitted heavily.
“What time did he leave?” Detective Shor asked.
“I don’t know. Just before midnight, I think. He was here with another guy most of the evening. The dead guy seemed to be trying to cheer up his friend.”
“Do you know what they were talking about?”
“Naw, man. It’s loud inside. I have a hard time hearing what people are ordering, never mind listening to their conversations.”
“Did either of them appear to be agitated in any way?”
“Well, like I said, the other guy was kinda down. This guy was trying to cheer him up.”
“Did anything unusual happen while they were here?”
Fizz gritted his teeth. “Look, can we continue talking about this in the morning? I could drop by the police station if you want. It’s just that we had a long night, and I was planning on…” Fucking. Getting knee deep in some pussy. Playing hide the salami. “Sleeping.”
“This is a murder investigation,” Detective Shor said in a serious tone, and Fizz thought to himself that maybe she wouldn’t be so fun in bed after all.
“Yeah, whatever. Unusual? I don’t know about unusual, but this dead guy here did go into the restroom with one of the local drug dealers, at one point.”
The detectives exchanged looks.
“So he bought drugs?” Detective Gladwin asked.
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe they were just comparing sizes, but usually these drug dealers don’t go to the bathroom with other folks just to pee.”
“When did the drug dealer leave the pub?”
Fizz hesitated. “I’m not sure. I think maybe around the time that this guy on your phone left. I don’t know.”
“We need you to come with us and look at some mugshots,” Detective Shor said.
“I think I’ll go home, Fizz.” Kyla said.
“No, wait—Kyla, hang on!” Fizz was getting angry. Absolutely not. This had gone long enough. “I’ll come first thing in the morning,” he lied. “But right now, I really need to get going—”
“Or we could get a search warrant for this place,” suggested Detective Gladwin. “Look for anything related to the murder. Who knows what we’d find.”
“Could be anything,” Detective Shor agreed. “Unregistered weapons, stashes of illegal substances…”
“I wonder if this place even has a permit,” Detective Gladwin said.
“Probably not,” Detective Shor said. They both edged closer to Fizz, Detective Gladwin smiling a small smile, Detective Shor frowning.
Fizz knew they were bluffing. He was sure of it. Absolutely sure. Well, almost sure.
This was a murder investigation. What if they really did get a search warrant?
Leroy would kill him if these detectives started looking around the place.
“Fine.” Fizz groaned. “I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Fizz,” Kyla said. And her tone was clear. She would see him tomorrow. But the plans they’d had for tonight?
They’d never happen.
The first thing Hannah did when they returned to the station was make a fresh pot of coffee. They’ve been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, and everything was beginning to feel woozy. But they had a witness to interrogate.
She made the coffee extra strong.
She sat down next to Bernard and the bartender. Bernard was showing Fizz mugshots. He’d been sullen and quiet the whole way to the station, only once muttering something about a holy grail. Hannah was sympathetic. Like her, the man had worked all night, and he was tired. But, luckily for him, in an hour or two he could go to sleep. She still had to keep going.
Fizz took a sip from the steaming cup she handed him. He grimaced. “It’s hot,” he complained.
“It’s coffee,” Hannah said, pulling Frank Gulliepe’s phone from her pocket. “It’s supposed to be hot. Let it cool down a bit.”
She turned on Frank’s phone’s screen. It was locked with a pattern lock.
Hannah knew that people thought their pattern lock was like the door of Fort Knox: they assumed no one could crack their code. And many times it was basically true; some motion codes were complex enough to protect the phone from simple hackers. But most weren’t. There were several incredibly frequent patterns used in those locks. The most frequent were M, W, Z, reverse Z, and the four rotations of L. And if a hacker got it wrong in three tries, he could usually wait for ten minutes, or half an hour, and try again.
Hannah tried M, W, and Z. It was none of those, and the phone locked itself. She glanced at Fizz, who was flipping through the first album in fast, jerking motions, as if the pages had hurt his feelings.
“Anything?” she asked.
“No,” he said. She could have done without the sulking tone. He sounded like an angry teenager, about to scream “You’re not my mother!” and leave the room, slamming the door behind him.
“We don’t have a file on Frank Gulliepe, and he isn’t in NCIC,”
Bernard said, referring to the National Crime Information Center. He was facing away from Hannah, typing something on his keyboard.
“Model citizen. Social networks?” Hannah asked.
“Why don’t we check tomorrow morning?” Bernard said, tapping his foot.
Hannah sipped from her coffee. “Well, we have to be here with our witness anyway, so…”
“Fine, fine!” Bernard said. He turned toward his computer and started browsing. “Well, here’s his Facebook page,” he finally said.
Frank’s Facebook page appeared on screen. It was mostly empty.
“Looks like we have to be his friends to see the interesting stuff,” Hannah said.
“Any luck with the phone?”
“Not yet,” she answered.
Bernard tried Instagram. He had better luck there. “His Instagram profile is public,” he said.
Hannah nudged Bernard aside a bit and rolled her chair next to his. Bernard scrolled down the page. The latest image was a selfie of Frank and Jerome from last night, in a pub. They were both red-eyed, with goofy, fake smiles plastered on their faces. Scrolling further, there were several images of a pretty, tanned, dark-haired girl, some of them taken with Frank. All the images were from the past four weeks.
“Girlfriend?” Bernard asked.
“Maybe,” Hannah said. “She’s tagged here. Lyla.”
Bernard scrolled some more. As far as Instagram pages went, this was as generic as they came. Selfies with various people, some pictures of vistas from what seemed to be an office window, several pictures of food.
Hannah picked up the phone again, tried reverse Z, L, and upside down L. Nothing.
“His Twitter page seems to be mostly about things he saw on TV,” Bernard said. “@FrankG13. A hundred and thirteen followers.”
Hannah’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen; it was Matt. “Yeah?” she answered.
“Hey, Hannah. I’m not done here yet, but I thought you might be interested in this,” Matt said.
“Go on.”
“In the medicine cabinet, he has a box of painkillers.”
“Yeah, I saw them.”
“Only they’re not painkillers.”
“They aren’t?” she asked. “What are they then?”
“I’ll be able to tell you more once I get them to the lab, but I’m pretty sure they’re Ecstasy.”
“Okay,” she said. “Anything else?”
“I need coffee.”
“Try next door. The neighbor’s name is Petal, but it’s not her fault. She makes good coffee.”
“Bye, Hannah.”
She put her phone in her pocket and updated Bernard about Matt’s findings. Then she took Frank’s phone out again. Inverse upside-down L.
The phone unlocked.
“Hey,” she called, feeling pleased with herself. “I unlocked the phone!”
Bernard turned to her. “Great!” he said. “Got the phone number for the taxi?”
She checked the outgoing calls. “There. Twelve-ten, a call to this number…” She jotted the number on a writing pad on Bernard’s desk. “And at twelve-twenty-two, a different number, probably belonging to the taxi driver, called back.”
Bernard took the pad. “I’ll call the number,” he said.
Hannah nodded distractedly. She scanned the rest of the calls from the last couple of days. There were some unknown numbers, several calls to and from Jerome, four calls to the Wexler Care Center, some unknown names she wrote down.
“Hey, I think I found him!” Fizz said. He sounded excited, relieved.
Bernard was arguing with someone, probably the taxi driver, on the phone. Hannah approached Fizz.
He pointed at a picture of a bald, thin, white man. Hannah identified the guy even before she glanced at the name.
“That’s Chad Grimes,” she said. “He sells E, meth, and cocaine on the street. Small-time drug peddler.”
“There you go,” Fizz said. “Now, are you gonna drive me home?”
“We’ll get you a cab.”
“I’m not paying for no cab,” Fizz said angrily.
“Relax,” Hannah said. “We’ll pay for the ride. I just need your name for the report, and any follow up.”
“It’s Fizz.”
She sighed. “Your real name.”
“Everyone calls me Fizz. Even my mother calls me Fizz. It is my real name.”
“Well, unlike your mother, my report actually has to have the name that you have on your driver’s license,” Hannah said, trying to remain patient.
Fizz glared at her.
This was a game she knew well. She glared back.
Finally, he lowered his head. “It’s Theogrblgrblgrbl,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Hannah said. “What is it again?”
“Theodore Rupert, okay? Happy now?”
“Thrilled,” Hannah said, writing the name down. “It’s a nice name. My great grandfather was named Theodore.”
Fizz grumbled something. She called the taxi station the department used, and ordered a cab for Fizz. Then she walked him out.
“It’ll be here in a few minutes,” she told him. “The driver will charge us later.”
“You sure? I don’t want to be stuck with the bill after all this,” the bartender said.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine. Good night, Theodore.” She smiled to herself as he turned his back to her, refusing to respond.
She returned to the office and picked up Frank’s phone from the desk. Bernard was typing on his computer.
“The taxi driver that Frank Gulliepe called is on his way over here,” Bernard said.
“Cool,” Hannah said, entering Frank’s e-mail app.
“He wasn’t happy about it.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t.” She started scrolling through his incoming mail.
“After we interview this guy we call it a night, right? I mean, aside from the bartender and the taxi driver, there aren’t any immediate leads.”
“Well,” Hannah said, “the trail is warm right now. It would be better if we go to Chad Grimes’s place as soon as possible, wouldn’t it? If he’s our killer, perhaps he won’t have time to destroy all the evidence.”
“Why do you hate me, Hannah?” Bernard said.
“I really don’t,” she said distractedly. Frank didn’t have a lot of mail, mostly confirmations of bills paid, notification e-mails from Twitter and Facebook, the regular stuff. She was about to close the e-mail app when her finger wavered and she frowned.
One of the Twitter e-mails was a confirmation for a new account. It wasn’t the account @FrankG13. It was for @youslut134. She went over to her computer, logged it and browsed to Twitter. She checked out @youslut134.
It was like pouring acid on her screen. This profile, which had been opened two weeks before, was focused on harassing a different Twitter handle, @MelanieFoster52. It had only five messages, written a few seconds apart, after which she had presumably blocked him.
When your husband fucks you in the ass, @MelanieFoster52, how does it feel?
Do your parents know what a slut you are, @MelanieFoster52?
I know how you look naked, @MelanieFoster52
I come when I think of your mouth around my cock, @MelanieFoster52
Does it hurt when people call you a fat slut to your face @MelanieFoster52?
Hannah checked the Twitter confirmation mail. It was forwarded from a different e-mail address, which seemed to be a random collection of characters.
Hannah searched for other e-mails on Frank’s phone in which the subject contained the phrase “Confirm your Twitter account.”
She got eighty-seven results.
She tried the first one, @mybitch3434. It was harassing a different Twitter handle. The next three were suspended, according to the message on their page. The fifth one, @suckme987655, was once again targeting @MelanieFoster52. Scrolling through the e-mails, Hannah saw that all the aliases were pretty much the same. A nasty phrase and a string of rand
om numbers.
Frank Gulliepe was a venomous, vile internet troll. If they were searching for suspects and motive, they had just found a bucketload.
Chapter Four
Damion Cosmatos was about forty, with ruddy skin, light brown hair, a toothbrush mustache, and a pair of the biggest ears Hannah had ever seen in her life. He spoke incredibly fast, and she was having trouble following his sentences. At the moment, he was waving his arms angrily, demanding that the police compensate him for the time he could be working. Hannah stared at him with exhausted eyes, waiting for any gap between the words. None seemed forthcoming.
“—and I just received a call from a passenger who wanted to go to the airport, do you know the fare for driving a man to the airport at night, no you don’t, it’s a lot of money, and I had to tell him no because the police had important business with me, will you pay for the fare that I missed, you better pay, I know a very good lawyer who is also a journalist, and he can sue you and then write about it in the paper—”
“Mr. Cosmatos,” Hannah tried. Her words left her mouth and were trampled by Damion’s angry monologue. There were no survivors.
“—is this country coming to, I am a tax-paying citizen, I did nothing wrong, why do people like me always suffer from the brutality of the police, I have a brother who knows a senator, he can have you fired, do you know how much money—”
“Mr. Cosmatos!” Hannah tried again, with no measurable effect. She wondered if this was a legal ground for arrest: assault with a verbal torrent. Probably not. A pity.
“—my dentist, my doctor, my mother, my cousin, I will tell them all how the police treat the citizens of this—”
“Mr. Cosmatos! If you don’t let me talk, I will arrest you and charge you with obstructing justice!”
This stopped him, though his lips kept moving silently for several seconds more, probably due to inertia. Bernard glanced at Hannah, looking amused.
The three of them stood in the lobby of police headquarters, after the taxi driver adamantly refused to enter any further into the building.
