Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  “To make you happy,” we said in monotone unison.

  “Catching this assbag would make me happy. Handing this off to the Feebies would make me almost as happy. Dismissed.”

  We left, Benedict closing the door behind us.

  “Eat breakfast?” I asked him.

  He nodded.

  “It would have been my treat,” I joked.

  “If you feel bad, you can give me the cash.”

  We stopped at a carousel vending machine. The type with the revolving little compartments that held fruit and sandwiches and juices. I fed four bucks into the machine and got an egg sandwich. The picture on the wrapper was so appetizing it made a home-cooked breakfast look messy and freakish.

  I took off the paper, and stared at an English muffin that was completely devoid of color. I lifted up an end. The eggs were also virtually colorless, and the pad of meat on top was the size of a half dollar and the same muddy brown as our coffee.

  So much for truth in advertising.

  When I got sick of looking at it, I placed it in the microwave next to the vending machine. It had to be one of the first microwaves ever made, and probably ran on diesel. It belonged in a museum, not a precinct house. But our budget mostly went toward office supplies. The rest was reluctantly doled out for more Kevlar, since our bullet proof vests had a habit of walking out on us. We were missing almost twenty in the past year, and hadn’t found the thief yet. I guess someone was getting a good price for them on the street. Either that, or they were paranoid as hell about getting shot.

  The microwave pinged, and I took out the tray. Modern technology was wonderful. It could take a cold blob of yuck and in under a minute turn it into a hot blob of yuck, while also removing every smidgeon of flavor.

  “What did you have?” I asked Herb, eyeing what I was about to upset my stomach with.

  “Homemade muffins. Perkin’s wife brought a whole bunch in. They were amazing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, dropping the sandwich into the trash.

  “Because I ate the last four,” said Herb. “I wasn’t even hungry after the second one, but I forced them down anyway because they were so good.”

  I glanced at the garbage. My ugly egg sandwich was sitting on a mound of ugly coffee grounds.

  “Shit,” I said, for lack of a better thing to say.

  I walked back to my office and Benedict went to his cubicle, giving each of us time to go over the autopsy report.

  The duct tape was grey, and two inches wide. The first piece was thirty-five inches long, and wrapped around her ankles.

  The second piece was eighty-three inches long, starting at the stomach and taping her arms to her sides, going all the way up to her elbows.

  The last piece was seven inches long, taping her mouth shut. All the ends were cut with scissors.

  No fingerprints, indicating that someone probably used gloves. It was very easy to get a print on the sticky side of duct tape. The outside was also receptive, because it was smooth. But not even a partial was found.

  In her mouth, behind the duct tape, was a wad of toilet paper. Matched the paper in the bathroom.

  Traces of Drano and subsequent burns found all over her body. It also dissolved several patches of her blond hair.

  Strands of burlap fiber found stuck to the edges of the duct tape.

  Fecal matter found under and around victim was tested to have come from her.

  No clothing on the body. No personal items found in the room.

  I looked at the autopsy and scanned the atrocities.

  Several dozen bruises.

  Thirty-six cigarette burns, most concentrated around her breasts.

  Broken collarbone.

  Broken arm.

  Chiseled-out teeth, with trauma to lips and tongue.

  Severe vaginal and anal trauma.

  Chemical burns covering ninety percent of body, from the Drano.

  Two black eyes.

  A broken nose.

  Internal hemorrhaging.

  Death by kidney failure, caused by dehydration. Blasky theorized she probably hadn’t been conscious during the last twenty-hour hours of her life.

  One could only hope.

  No fibers found on body, save a few that matched the burlap stuck to the duct tape.

  No skin under her fingernails.

  I logged onto my desktop computer and sipped the cold, salty remnants of coffee as it booted. When it did, I logged into the CPD network server just as the phone rang. I stopped the phone from ringing by picking it up. It’s a trick I do.

  “Daniels.”

  “This is Tate at the front desk. Got a bald guy named Troutt here to see you.”

  “Send him up.”

  Phin came in a few minutes later, wearing a flannel shirt and faded jeans with a rip in the left knee. With my shades open behind me he had a full raster of sunlight hitting him in the face.

  He looked like a corpse. Thin and ragged and sunken.

  I hoped my shock didn’t show.

  “I hope the rumors are true,” he said.

  “About my unparalleled fashion sense?”

  “About cops liking donuts. I brought you some.”

  He held out a white bakery bag and set it on my desk.

  The scent of cinnamon invaded my nostrils and told my salivary glands to kick in.

  “Thanks,” I exercised superheroic self-control and didn’t reach for the bag immediately.

  Phin wasn’t here to break bread. He wanted the file on Amy Scadder.

  “You can read it here,” I told him. It took a few keystrokes to bring it up on my computer, and I gave him my seat, located the previous Jane Doe’s autopsy report on one of the many piles threatening to topple off my desk, and then nonchalantly opened the donut bag, selecting a cinnamon bun almost the size of my head. My personal beliefs on the existence of an afterlife were skeptical, but if there was a heaven, it smelled like this donut.

  I took a bite. Soft as butter.

  Maybe there was a god after all.

  “Where did you get these?” I had to ask.

  Phin looked up from the notes he’d been taking.

  “Good?” he asked.

  “Great,” I said.

  “I found them in the dumpster outside, under a diaper.”

  “I’m serious. I want to patronize this place, and possibly leave them something in my will.”

  “I thought you were a good cop,” said Phin. He turned the bag around and let me see the name printed on it.

  Duh.

  I finished inhaling the cinnamon bun and wrestled a bear claw out of the bag, then sat in the visitor’s chair as I cracked the Jane Doe #1 report.

  Lots of similarities. The duct tape. The Drano. The burlap. The bruises and burns. The chipped teeth. The death by dehydration. But the first murder had one thing different about it.

  “Do you have anything on her father?” Phin asked.

  “Hmm?” I said, mouth full of bear claw.

  “Vincent Scadder. Does he have a sheet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you check?”

  I appraised Phin. He was not a man who liked asking for favors. I don’t think I’d ever met a tougher man, except for a guy named Tequila that I’d run into some years ago.

  “Sure,” I told him. I leaned over him and accessed a different database. Then it was just a question of key strokes before Vincent Scadder’s record appeared on the screen.

  Scadder looked irritated in his mugshot, like being arrested was an inconvenience. His crime was state tax evasion.

  “Was he convicted?” Phin asked.

  “Different database. Gimme a sec.” I punched some keys and clicked the appropriate spots.

  “Probation. Got a hefty fine.”

  “Can I get a copy?”

  He was pushing the limits of friendly favors, but I printed the file for him. Phin took it, and continued to stare at me, as if expecting more.

  Right, he�
�d asked me about something else. The partial. I did my computer-fu, and punched the digits into the proper text box.

  “Seventy-four potentials,” I said.

  He frowned. “Those are all from white Land Rovers?”

  “That’s the correct order, but you didn’t tell me the position.”

  He reached into his pocket, forked out a photo between his fingers. It was of two people in front of a Land Rover, a man and a girl, and their legs were blocking the plate. Illinois cars had up to seven digits, and the two that were visible were somewhere in the middle.

  “You sure that’s a B?” I asked. “Looks like an R to me.”

  Phin’s frown became a slight wince. I reran the search. “One hundred and eight potentials,” I told him.

  “I liked it better as a B.”

  That must have served as a thank you, because he nodded and left without saying anything else. I was considering another donut when Benedict walked in, with two cups of coffee. Apparently, he was trying to kill me.

  “You trying to kill me?” I asked.

  “This is from the vending machine. The coffee maker finally died.”

  “How?”

  “Someone threw it on the floor and stomped on it.”

  “Homicide,” I said.

  “Justifiable,” Herb said. “A good attorney would push for exculpation.”

  “And everyone in the building had a motive. You got an alibi for the time of death?”

  “I won’t answer any questions without a lawyer present. How about you?”

  “I plead the fifth. How’s the vending brew?”

  “I don’t want to cloud your opinion.”

  I took a slug and found it wasn’t that much of an improvement. We’d traded salty for greasy.

  “Aren’t there like seven hundred Starbucks within walking distance?” I asked.

  “If you go, get me one.” He dug into my donut bag without asking for permission, selected a jelly, and scarfed it down while making greedy, satisfied noises.

  I found some napkins in my desk and passed Herb a few. Then we began the time honored tradition of brainstorming, bouncing facts and ideas off of one another.

  It rarely led to a revelation, but did help us both become more familiar with the facts surrounding the case.

  “So… theories, observations, helpful crime-solving hints?” asked I.

  “The perps paid in advance both times in cash. Once under the name Doug Jackson, once under the name Doug Stevenson.”

  “Both common names. Impossible to trace. But they used the same first name twice.”

  “So maybe one of the perps is named Doug?”

  “We keep saying perps. Could be just one guy, smoking two brands of cigarettes to throw us off.”

  “Does it feel like one guy?” Herb asked.

  I frowned. “Feels like two. Maybe more.”

  “Why? Other than the obvious?”

  The obvious Herb was referring to was the descriptions given by the hotel clerks. Other than both being white, the men who checked into the hotels were different heights, had different hair and eye colors, and one was about fifty pounds heavier. Could have been a disguise, but I had a feeling it was multiple perps.

  I tried to wrap my head around the feeling. “We’ve been to crime scenes that felt… private. As perverted as the act was, it was carried out in an intimate way. These two motel murders… they felt more like two boys reveling in how bad they’re being. Feeding off each other.”

  Herb nodded. “Like a frat party. Encouraging one another’s debauchery.”

  People that kill together wasn’t as rare as it might seem. Herb and I had tackled a degenerate family before, the Korks. They seemed to have it in their blood, and their particularly unhappy brand of nature and nurture had caused a lot of suffering and death.

  We’d also had some gang experience. Years ago, I’d gone undercover to arrest a psychopath known as T-Nail, who headed a gang called the Eternal Black C-Notes. They functioned almost like an insect hive, following his orders, each willing to die for the others. It was all about loyalty and respect and pecking order, and they would often kill together. The C-Notes once tortured a snitch, in front of his family, for three days before the man finally died.

  But the Korks had been genetically insane, and for the C-Notes, it had been about business and a perverted sort of honor. The Motel Murders were different. A group of friends, who killed together for fun, was something we hadn’t seen before. Who were these guys? How did they meet? What started them down this path? Where was the weak link? How long has this been going on?

  “Clues?” I asked.

  “Used the same type of duct tape. Possibly the same roll. If we find the tape, it’s good enough for an arrest warrant.”

  “Keep going.”

  Herb flipped through his notes.

  “Burlap fibers found on both bodies. But no bag found at either scene.”

  “You think they carried her into the room in a burlap bag?”

  “Could be. But they’d risk being seen, so that would be stupid.”

  I agreed. The human body has an instantly identifiable shape, even if wrapped in burlap. Anyone who saw that would have called the cops.

  “So why the fibers?”

  “Maybe one of the perps works at a textile mill?” Herb suggested.

  “Something for the captain’s task force to check. Anything else?”

  “Both times, the perps paid in advance, using cash.”

  Impossible to trace cash. Damn near impossible to dust cash for prints, but we were trying, much to the chagrin of the motel manager who was more upset at his register drawer being taken as evidence than he was over the fact that a girl was tortured to death in one of his rooms.

  “How many days did they pay for?” I asked.

  Benedict checked his notes. “Last one was eleven days. Explicit instructions not to disturb.”

  I felt a little flutter in my stomach. “And how about the other one?”

  It took Herb a minute to find it. “Eleven days,” he said.

  I called the captain. Having the task force call textile mills was probably a pointless use of taxpayer dollars. But having the task force call motels, asking if any customer paid for eleven days advance in cash, might lead to something.

  With that underway, Benedict and I reviewed the videotapes from each of the crime scenes.

  The footage was extensive and professional. When video cameras were first introduced to the police department as a supplement to photos and sketches of crime scenes, they were frustrating. The cameraman had constantly been in the way, the footage was jumpy and out of focus, and it seemed more a hindrance than a help. Then we started a training program teaching the proper way to videotape a scene, and since then it’s been a blessing.

  The tape of the first scene brought it all back for me. Everything but the smell. As I watched I tried to place myself in the killer’s head, yet another thing that I’m lousy at. Seeing the small, brown, duct-taped girl with her dead grey eyes stretched open, all I could think of was shooting the bastard responsible. I could not imagine doing that to a human being, let alone getting pleasure from it. But I tried anyway.

  What do the killers want?

  Power.

  Control.

  Controlling this girl’s life and death.

  Because it’s fun.

  Why young girls?

  She’s shapely. Post-pubescent.

  This isn’t a pedophile thing.

  It isn’t about age.

  It’s about manipulation.

  Teenagers are naïve. Gullible. Easier to control.

  Why motel rooms? Why take that risk?

  Maybe taking the girls home isn’t possible.

  Homeless?

  Someone else who lives at home?

  A family?

  “Could they be kids?” I said aloud.

  Herb paused the recording. “You mean, like high school students?”

  “What do
you do if you want to have a party, but don’t want to trash your parent’s house?”

  “You rent a room.”

  “And you don’t worry about cleaning up afterward. That’s why they leave them there.”

  “Rich kids. Entitled. Spoiled.”

  “Psychotic,” I said. “But they aren’t necessarily kids. They could be older. Just really immature.”

  “So how do we catch them?”

  How indeed?

  We both thought about it for a little while. I took another sip of my coffee, which got greasier the closer I got to the bottom. I think I preferred the regular station crap to the vending machine crap. At least you didn’t have to pay for the privilege of becoming nauseous.

  “You’ve got some sugar on your cheek,” Herb said.

  “You’ve got some jelly in your mustache.”

  We used napkins. On ourselves. Herb’s like a brother to me, but the line was firmly drawn at wiping food off his face.

  I put on the latest crime scene vid, thinking that maybe something would pop out at us having just watched the previous video. Contrary to popular TV shows, very little of police work was exciting. Mostly it was following leads that went nowhere, writing reports, thinking, and waiting around.

  “Would you ever move to the suburbs?” I asked Herb.

  “Hell, no. I love the city.” He raised an eyebrow. “Having regrets?”

  “Every second of every day.”

  “Can’t you talk to your mother about it?”

  “I don’t want to go home. She has a male friend over.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “He’s nice enough. But the other day he was sitting at the breakfast table, and he fell out of his robe.”

  “He fell? Is he okay?”

  “No. I mean he was sitting there, and I noticed that all of the parts that should be inside his robe were not.”

  “The old guy flashed you?”

  “He didn’t flash me.” I quit beating around the bush. “His balls were hanging out.”

  Herb smirked. “Did you tell him?”

  “No. But, Herb… they were hanging over the edge of the chair. I mean, really hanging. They had to be seven or eight inches long.”

  “Gravity catches up with everyone, Jack.”

  “That happens? To all guys?”

  “Not just men. My wife certainly requires more support than when we were dating.”