by L. A. Witt
“I don’t like that we can’t find him,” I said, picking at the sandwich I’d half-heartedly ordered from the unfamiliar menu. Andreas looked from me to the plate and back, and I took a bite. Damn Dad stare. I couldn’t resist it.
“He could have taken half a dozen alleys a block out from that convenience store, and there are plenty of gaps in coverage even along the main streets. If he hailed a cab or something . . .” Andreas shrugged. “There are too many variables.”
“Yeah.” That was logical, reasonable, but it didn’t sit well with me even so. Nothing about this morning was sitting well with me, but the case had moved to the front of my brain, and all of my unanswered questions had come with it. Who had paid the bail, where had Brian gone, why hadn’t he gotten in touch . . . Not that I blamed him, exactly, but I fervently wished that I’d made it clearer to him that he wasn’t in any danger from us.
Andreas nudged my foot under the table with his. “Eat. It’s half an hour until two, we’ve got to go get Luanne to bingo.”
“And ask her if she’s heard anything from Brian while we do it.”
“Exactly.”
We parked in front of Lu’s house twenty minutes later. I was pretty confident we could convince her to ride to bingo with us, especially since she’d met me already. I had no clue if Brian had spoken to her at all about knowing me as a cop, and if that might make her less cooperative. I hoped she’d at least talk to us.
Or maybe we’d get lucky and Brian would be home and we could talk to both of them. That would be ideal, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Andreas stood back a bit as I knocked on the front door. Lu had two baskets of gardenias blooming to either side of the porch, and the little white blossoms had a surprisingly strong perfume. I inhaled a little deeper as I waited for her to answer.
Nothing. I knocked again. “Mrs. Garcia? It’s Darren,” I called through the door. “We met at bingo the other day. I’m friends with Brian McIntosh.”
“Because arresting him totally counts,” Andreas deadpanned.
“Shut up. Mrs. Garcia?” I tentatively tried the door, and it swung open under my hand. “Shit.” This wasn’t good. I remembered the pride in Luanne’s voice when she’d told me that she always locked her doors. “Safety first.”
Andreas was all business now, one hand already going to his gun. “Probable cause. Go.”
I pushed the door open and slowly stepped inside, making sure the front hall was clear before I ventured farther. “Mrs. Garcia? Luanne? We’re the police, we’re not here to hurt you.” It was worth a shot. “Brian? Are you home?” Where had he lived again? A basement apartment? I cleared the kitchen, then headed for the side door and the stairwell that connected the main floor to the garage and basement.
“Lu?” The door to the basement was slightly ajar, but the light was off. I opened it up the rest of the way and flicked the switch on. “Lu?” What was that glinting down at the bottom of the stairs? Like a broken piece of glass, or . . . glasses . . . on a beaded string. Now that I knew what I was looking at, I recognized them instantly.
“Lu!” I desperately wanted to rush down the stairs, but I forced myself to take my time, make sure I wasn’t walking into a trap. Andreas was right behind me, and as soon as he said, “You’re good, go,” I was holstering my gun and dropping to my knees beside Luanne Garcia.
She lay a few feet from the bottom of the stairs, on her stomach, both hands out like she’d been reaching for something. There was a pool of blood on the floor beneath her, and even as I pressed my fingers to her neck to check for a pulse, I knew she was dead. Her eyes were open, filmy with more than cataracts now, and her back was straighter than a woman with a widow’s hunch would have been able to tolerate.
Her body was cold. Damn, how long had she been lying here?
I called 911 and reported it, my free hand still fruitlessly pressed against her neck. My fingers slipped at one point, and I jerked my hand back as they ran into slick blood and rough, bumpy cartilage. Her throat hadn’t just been slit—it had been cut nearly in two.
“Fuck,” I muttered, still on the line with dispatch. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I resisted the urge to wipe my hand off on my pants, and also to throw up. “What’s your ETA?”
“Four minutes. Please stay on the line, sir, we’re—”
I hung up before she could say anything else, and forced myself to my feet to look for Andreas. I’d expected . . . I don’t know, a touch, a hand on my shoulder, anything to help snap me out of the moment. Instead he was staring at the wall across from us, where a thick streak of blood had drained down the wallpaper.
“She was killed over here.” He raised a hand and gestured at the stain. “That’s arterial spray. She didn’t live for more than a few seconds after the first blow to the neck.”
“What are you getting at?” I managed to ask. Focus, focus on the questions, focus on the case. Don’t think about the body behind you, the nice old lady you were supposed to take to bingo. Stop it. Stop it.
“Her body was moved. Turned to make it look like she was trying to get to the door, maybe, when you and I both know that she needed a walker to get anywhere. I don’t see the walker.”
I didn’t either. “What . . . what else?”
“Look at the desk.”
I glanced toward where he was pointing, then did a double take. There was a map on the desk. A map of the city, pinned in place with a bunch of multicolored tacks: three in orange, four in green, five in blue, and five in red. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“It gets better,” Andreas said grimly. “There’s a box on the couch with probably thirty feet of rope in it, the same style of rope that was used in the last five hangings. Also duct tape and what looks like a box cutter.”
“Evidence.”
“Maybe damning evidence.”
“Brian didn’t do this.” I knew it. I felt it all the way down to my fucking bones.
“No,” Andreas agreed. “But we don’t know where Brian is right now.”
I put two and two together. “Jim is setting him up.”
“Got to be.”
“But how?” It still didn’t make sense. “He’s being watched! The cops keeping an eye on him are supposed to monitor his activities. Paying Brian’s bail is one thing, but breaking into this house and murdering Lu? How could they not notice that?”
Andreas’s expression when he turned to me was fierce. “I’d like to know that too.”
It turned out that one of the pairs of officers meant to be watching Jim had been called away early this morning. Not our precinct’s officers, either.
“They were needed elsewhere.”
Andreas slammed his hand down in the middle of Detective Perkins’s desk. The fact that the man didn’t jump was almost enough to make me respect him, except for the way that he’d just fucked over our entire case. “Really? You think sending them off to, what, go knocking on doors uptown like fuckin’ Girl Scouts selling cookies was a better use of their time than keeping a guy from murdering someone?”
“Chief Singh gave me the discretion to reallocate officers based on the evidence at hand, and I took initiative. It’s not my fault that you couldn’t be bothered to share enough information to give me what I needed to make a better decision.”
“Jesus Christ, pass that buck any faster and you’ll bankrupt yourself.” The contempt in Andreas’s voice could be used as paint remover, it was so harsh. “You had your orders and you decided not to follow them because you thought you knew better—didn’t verify, didn’t question, just acted without considering all the implications. Well, now we’ve got a serial killer on the loose, thanks to you.”
“Your serial killer was on the loose the moment he made bail.”
“Brian McIntosh isn’t the serial killer!”
“Oh really?” Perkins got up and came around the desk, getting nose to nose with Andreas. “So you want to pick and choose evidence in this case the same way you did in your last
one?”
“What the hell are you—”
“So a few bad apples in the force made some mistakes, drew some other people in. Did you take all of the extenuating circumstances into account when you decided to ruin dozens of lives? Did you?” He looked like he was about to spit, or maybe try to shove Andreas. That would end in serious pain for him. “Don’t expect the rest of us to jump to attention just because you’ve managed to convince the brass that you’re not a drug addict and a—”
“That’s enough.” Chief Singh was back, done with her conversation with our chief, I presumed. She looked unhappy. Welcome to the fucking club. “Detective Perkins, I disapprove of the latitude with which you interpreted my order. Detectives Ruffner and Corliss, I expect you to give us the information we need to make informed decisions. As far as I’m concerned, this is on all of you.”
“Give my unit control of the case,” Perkins said instantly. “We’ll find Brian McIntosh before he can kill again. If he sticks to the pattern—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Holy shit, had I just said that? Three surprised faces turned my way. Huh, guess I had. I was mad, though, furious at the thought of this case being not only taken away from us, but turned in entirely the wrong direction after what had happened today. We’d already had too many wrong turns, we couldn’t afford another one. “You didn’t even know there was a pattern to look for a week ago, and now you want to take over a case you’ve already fucked up beyond recognition. Do you want it for the glory, or just for the chance to stick the knife in a little deeper?”
I leaned in toward him. “I don’t care what you think of me. I know my partner doesn’t give a shit what you think of him either, but like us or not, we’ve put more hours of work into this case than you can possibly hope to replicate by the time your precious goddamn pattern kicks in again. You really think you can figure all of this out in time? Because I don’t.” I looked over at Chief Singh. “We’re your best shot at catching this killer. Detective Perkins’s theory is off-base, and if you need proof, then send someone over to look at the reams of evidence we’ve got pointing at someone else, but please, don’t remove us from the investigation.”
“Well,” she said after a moment, her voice as dry as dust. “I suppose, since you said please. But if you can’t get results, and quickly, then Detective Perkins and his unit will be assisting you.”
That was a motivational threat if ever I’d heard one. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She glanced between Andreas and me, her face solemn. “Thank me by solving this case.”
“We need to talk to Jim’s niece. Jenna Zabinski.”
Darren eyed me across the conference room table. “What for? She’s already said—”
“Because at this point, I don’t know what else to do.”
His forehead creased, and I quickly pulled my gaze away, pretending to be focused on the photos from Luanne Garcia’s murder. I hated admitting that. Laying down the card that we were well and truly fucked without a miracle. That a politically minded judge, a wishy-washy DA, and a precinct who had it out for us could, in the space of a few hours, lose our prime suspect and his patsy, not to mention let a poor old woman be brutally murdered.
And the blame didn’t even matter at this point. I could go back to the Thirty-Second and tear every last one of those cops a new one, but it wouldn’t get us any closer to Brian or Jim. Every minute we wasted, however, took us closer to the twenty-sixth. Even paying a visit to Jenna felt like a waste of time, but we couldn’t just sit here and stare at files all fucking day.
Darren sat up slowly and reached for his phone. “You driving?”
It was a weird question. I always drove. Always. But maybe the cracks were showing more than I thought. Not that he was in any better shape. He’d been raw and brittle all day. Who wouldn’t be after what he’d been through?
Neither of us said anything as we collected our coats and wallets and headed down to the car. In silence, we drove out to Jenna’s last known employer, a dry cleaner over on Maxwell Avenue. At least that was a lucky break—she was there.
As we walked into the dry cleaner, she stiffened.
“Hi, Jenna,” Darren said. “You mind if we chat for a bit?”
She gulped, and I thought some color slipped out of her face. “What about?” Had she been this agitated before? She’d been nervous at the lineup, of course, but this seemed . . . different.
“Just need to ask some questions.” Darren plastered on a smile. He was definitely struggling today, because I doubted anyone bought the smile. “Won’t take long.”
“I’ll . . .” She glanced in the back. “Let me check with my boss. I can probably take my break now.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Once she’d been cleared by her boss, she took us out the back door to a small alley lined with dumpsters, fire escapes, and big steel doors leading to the other businesses in the building.
She nervously folded and refolded her hands. “So, what can I do for you? Did you catch the guy who attacked me?”
“No,” I said. “We need to ask you about your uncle.”
Her spine was suddenly ramrod straight. “My uncle?”
“Yes. Jim Bresnick.”
If she hadn’t paled before, she did now. She swallowed with what seemed like some serious effort, and croaked, “What about him?”
“Did he put you up to filing a false official statement about being stalked?” It was blunt and to the point, and that was absolutely by design so I could gauge her response.
And she played her role flawlessly. A startled gasp. Shifty eyes. Instantly taking on closed body language—arms folding across her chest, shoulders bunching in tight, her torso twisting slightly away from us. She didn’t even need to speak. I already had my answer.
But, of course, she did speak. “What? No! Of course not.”
“Then run us through what happened that night,” I said coolly. “When you were accosted in the liquor store parking lot.”
“I told you—he came up to me and told me I was ruining everything, and that he’d be back when the time was right.”
“Did he touch you?” I asked.
“He . . .” She swallowed, eyes darting back and forth. “It’s been a while. I don’t . . . I mean, I don’t remember exactly—”
I inclined my head. “So you’re saying he didn’t grab your arm and jerk you away from your car?”
“No, he did!” she said quickly. “He did. He—”
“Which arm?”
“Which— What?”
“Which arm?” I pressed. “Was it your right or left arm? You can’t have forgotten that?”
“I . . . It was my . . .”
“Jenna.” I narrowed my eyes. “You told the detectives that he grabbed you by the throat, not the arm.”
Her features hardened. “It happened fast, okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Listen.” She glared up at me. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, but I—”
“Don’t play games with us, Jenna,” Darren snapped. The venom and force behind his voice startled me, not to mention her. “We’re trying to stop someone from being killed. If you’ve got something that can help us, spill it now. If not, then . . .” He made a sharp, frustrated gesture in the air.
She blinked a few times. So did I. This wasn’t a side of Darren I’d seen very often, aside from in the very beginning when it had been directed at me.
Jenna shifted her weight. “Do you think my uncle has been killing people?”
“We can’t disclose that,” I said. “But we do think—”
“Because he would.” The words tumbled out of her, and her hand went to her mouth as if she wasn’t sure she should’ve let them slip.
Darren and I exchanged glances.
“Come again?” I said.
She gulped. “My uncle is . . .” She scanned our surroundings and shifted her weight. “Listen, he’d freak out if he knew I told you anything. But Uncle
Jim is a psycho.”
Tell us something we don’t know.
“Can you give us some details?” I asked. “Things he’s said? Things he’s done?”
“I’ve . . .” She fixed her gaze on something that wasn’t either of us. “I’ve never seen him, like, attack anyone, but he’s got a violent temper. You set him off, he will lose his mind and break stuff.”
I nodded as she spoke. So far, this was consistent with what we knew.
“But he also likes to . . . I don’t know, fuck with people. Play them.”
“How do you mean?” Darren’s tone had softened considerably from a minute ago.
“He’d pit my dad and his brother against each other. Manipulate them both into being pissed at each other. Like, he’d convince my dad that something my other uncle had done meant something, and my dad would get all mad and stop talking to him.”
“So he likes to stir up drama,” I said. “Has he ever done anything you’d describe as criminal?”
“Uh, yeah. You could say that.”
We both watched her, waiting.
She pulled in a long, deep breath. “When I was little, he taught me how to shoplift. And whenever I was out with him, he’d encourage me to take something. Like candy and gum. Stuff like that.” Jenna hugged herself and didn’t look at either of us. “Then it was stuff like jewelry from Grandma’s house, or money from my dad’s wallet. It was just a game, you know?” She finally lifted her gaze. “I was four when it started. I didn’t know any better.”
“Did anyone know about this?” Darren asked.
She shook her head. “No. He told me it was our secret game. And if anyone found out, we couldn’t play anymore, and he wouldn’t talk to me anymore.” Jenna laughed bitterly. “When I finally told him I thought it was wrong and I was going to tell my dad, he told me that if anyone found out, it would be my fault. I’d go to jail. I’d never get into college. Even if I was still a minor, you know? So I didn’t.”
