The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  Now Lucky graced their humble abode. Kent had vowed to stop Lucky, but as the hours ticked down to his departure date, even Kent became more and more disparaged that he could fulfill his promise.

  “We have missed something,” Kent mumbled. He turned on the group. “You guys can’t always count on me to do the heavy-lifting. Think.”

  Jimmi, Joshua, Ruben and Nicole refused to meet his eye. Only Captain Glick stood up to Kent’s glare.

  “You love being the lone ranger, Harbinger,” Glick said. “Time to live up to your hype.”

  Damn it, like Kent didn’t know it. The only reason anyone put up with him, even his adoring new wife, was for his expertise. His intrepid mind was the only thing keeping him out of prison or the looney bin.

  He turned his supposedly withering stare to the board again. He went back to the beginning. The first set of murders. Detroit. A biker town so no great surprise there.

  The three women looked about as badly beaten as the current victim. At the least Lucky was consistent.

  Wait a minute.

  “These are all the same MO. Exactly,” Kent stated. Everyone nodded. “Doesn’t that seem odd? His first set of murders is perfect? He had it dialed in at such a young age?”

  Nicole’s brows furrowed together. “Those first sets of murders, in theory, should have been messier. More mistakes, not as fine-tuned?”

  “Exactly,” Kent said as he ripped the first three victim’s photos down. “These aren’t the first victims.”

  “But --” Ruben said then stopped himself. Good boy.

  Kent turned to Joshua and Jimmi, his info tag team. “I want you to dig up any rape-murders that at all fit Lucky 37’s MO but before his first official kill. Focus on the victim and not the cycle or timing of the murders.”

  “Do you know how many rape-murders across the country we are talking about?”

  “As the leading serialist profiler, yes I do,” Kent said. “It is going to be a lot, but really drill down to the overkill. That I believe would have been his early signature. That and the biker chick fetish. That should cut the results down to a manageable number.”

  Joshua’s head bobbed up and down. He was always up for anything Kent laid on him. “And me?”

  “We are talking pre-DNA days. You are going to help coordinate gathering samples they took but never ran to confirm if we have any early Lucky 37 kills.”

  “You got it,” Joshua said as he hopped off his stool. “And I’ll look into all of our records as well to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

  “Good,” Kent said. They all needed to go back and recheck their work. They couldn’t let a single clue slip through their fingers.

  A uniformed policeman ran into the room, handed Glick something then hightailed it out of there.

  Glick opened the manila envelope and pulled out a picture. “It seems this was Lucky 37’s victim last night. Lisa Bounnet. Twenty seven. A frequenter of biker bars given her sheet full of drunk and disorderly arrests.

  “Oh my god,” Nicole breathed out beside Kent.

  * * *

  Nicole took a step back from the picture. “I met her. That night I was staking out at the bar. I met her.”

  It seemed impossible. How out of all the biker chicks in the world, she had met one who turned out to be a Lucky 37 victim. It was chilling to know that was how close they had come to Lucky. How close Kent had brought them to Lucky.

  What if she’d gone back to that bar last night? Could she have prevented this latest tragedy?

  “It wasn’t your fault, Nic,” Kent tried to reassure her, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “This is the price we pay for getting so close.”

  She breathed out through her nose, trying to maintain focus but her mind kept overlaying that bloody, broken face over the smiling Facebook picture. She should have warned her. She should have done more.

  Nicole looked up into Kent’s eyes. If there was anyone in the world that understood how she felt, it was her husband.

  “We’re close,” Kent said. “You’ve got to remember that. If you knew her, you almost know him.”

  Nicole nodded, gulping down the saliva that had collected in her mouth. “I don’t know if it matters, but she had a really bad smoker’s rasp to her voice.”

  “It might,” Kent said, squeezing her upper arm. “Anything else you noticed about her?”

  “She was nice,” Nicole said. “I know Glick that you said she had a long rap sheet, but she wasn’t like a lot of the other hard core biker chicks. She seemed genuinely nice and friendly. She didn’t act like I was her competition.”

  “Interesting,” Kent said. “That really could be important. I think Lucky is looking for an emotional connection, more than a physical one. Acting nice, especially to another attractive woman is a rarity in that world.”

  “So what? We’re going to go up to each of them and ask them to give us a quarter?” Ruben challenged.

  She could see Kent’s jaw working up and down. She was very proud of her husband. That meant he was actually holding his tongue. Another rarity.

  “I think what it means is that we go back and interview all the bartenders and waitresses and find out who stands out as nice amongst their customers.” Nicole looked to Kent who nodded. “So why don’t you get started with that?”

  Ruben’s cheeks billowed in and out a few times, then he nodded. “I’ll get a few Uni’s to help out.”

  “Yes, why don’t you let the men with big boy pants do the thinking,” Kent commented.

  Nicole spun on her heel, digging her elbow into Kent’s side. Seriously just when she had diffused things he had to go all juvenile on her.

  “Ruben, please,” Nicole beseeched. “Another woman’s life is on the line. Can we forego the tit for tat? You guys can hash this out once we catch the killer.”

  Luckily for all of them, Ruben was the more mature of the two and he headed out without another word. Glick shook his head at Kent before he left.

  “You gotta learn to let it go, son.”

  * * *

  Ruben swore he could feel an aneurism coming on. His head throbbed. His pulse pounded against his temple. Paggie kept telling him it wasn’t healthy to engage with Kent like this, but there was something just so grating about the man, he felt helpless to stop.

  However as his vision started to blur when he trotted down the staircase, Ruben was beginning to rethink that supposition. Paggie also kept telling him, the only reason Kent sparred with him was because the profiler considered him a threat.

  Ruben seriously did not believe that. Kent led a violent, but charmed life. He got everything he wanted. Serial Killers. Nicole. Everything. That ring on his finger proved it.

  Even there he had upstaged Ruben and Paggie’s wedding with his own. How were they going to top that? He wanted to give Paggie the best day of her life, but how could he do that if all of the guests were comparing it to Kent and Nicole’s?

  Paggie said she didn’t care, but Ruben didn’t believe it. Didn’t every bride what to be the center of attention, if not just for that one day?

  He flagged down a few Uni’s standing around the parking lot. Bad day to be kicking it.

  “You two, head to the Hog Head tavern,” Ruben said. “We are looking for the friendliest, nicest of the biker chicks. Bring back a list along with addresses and phone numbers if possible.”

  One of the younger officers chuckled.

  Ruben gritted his teeth. He might have to put up with Kent’s attitude, but not these men’s. “We’re looking for Lucky 37’s next victim. If you don’t understand the urgency of that, I would recommend you go visit his latest victim in the morgue.”

  All the smirks feel off the men’s faces.

  Knowing that he had their attention, Ruben continued. “And you two hit up the Lost to the Road Bar. I want all of this done in two hours.”

  The men grumbled but no one specifically complained to Ruben. “Alright then, get going.”

  The
men scattered, clearly trying to get away from the uptight detective as soon as they could.

  Ruben had kept the largest biker bar, The Lonely Life Bar and Grill for himself. At the least he would like to contribute something to this case.

  * * *

  Joshua vibrated with anticipation. Lucky 37’s latest victim had just come in. He knew he should be sad, horrified or a little of both at the woman’s condition, yet he was only fascinated. It took a lot of force to break both zygomatic arches.

  Lucky 37 must have been buff. Sure the women had some alcohol in their systems, but with these women’s chronic alcohol consumption, that amount would only make them a little lubed up. Not tipsy or anything.

  Blitz attack. That’s what Lucky 37 employed. They had assumed that for a long time. Kent was right. This killer was as constant as the Northern Star. Never varying. Never wavering.

  His pattern and kills were always the same.

  Joshua looked up to the X-ray viewer, he had Lucky’s DNA profile on the viewer. His DNA was all over the woman. Semen, hair, skin. Joshua had everything. Lucky’s fingerprints, DNA, even a pretty decent composite sketch, but it hadn’t helped them a bit.

  Within his chosen group, he didn’t stand out at all. And none of the bikers were going to turn in one of their own, even if he was killing their women. That was some hard core loyalty. Kind of like Joshua’s to Kent.

  Ruben really should just learn to embrace the awesomeness of Kent and get over his whole grudge thing over Nicole. Heck, Joshua had.

  A crush on a girl certainly wasn’t worth not swimming in Kent’s awesome-sauce. Joshua had faith in the profiler. He would catch Lucky 37, most likely tonight. Joshua could just feel it in his bones. Or was that the rain that was coming?

  Either way, it was going to be an amazing night.

  He stared at the DNA profile again. They had already run it through every known database. With the exception of the crimes he had committed, Lucky didn’t pop up anywhere else. No military back ground. No prior arrests. No teacher’s license. Nothing.

  But wait. Hadn’t Kent suggested that originally Lucky 37 had helped them because he had a teenage daughter of his own?

  Joshua ran over to his computer and started a familial search. Maybe he could find someone related to Lucky.

  That would be super awesome in and of itself wouldn’t it?

  * * *

  “What are we doing here?” Nicole asked as they pulled into a mini golf course parking lot.

  “I need to focus,” Kent said as he got out of her Mustang and headed for the entrance.

  It was a busy Saturday afternoon. There were kids everywhere. Laughing, screaming, crying. How exactly was Kent going to focus?

  Still he strode right up to the ticket booth and bought them one round each. Nicole guessed that she was lucky. Kent never stopped surprising her.

  They picked up their clubs and balls and headed to the first hole. This one had a castle sitting over a bridge with a windmill circling, adding an additional level of difficulty, swinging over the entrance to the green.

  Kent put his ball down on the fake grass and eyed the hole. He swung his club back three times but didn’t hit the ball. By now a couple with three children had come up behind them.

  “Too scared to hit it?” the oldest dark haired boy scoffed.

  “Johnny!” the father barked and the mother tried to pull the boy away, but the boy slipped out of the hold.

  “Your parents too scared to tell you that you were adopted?” Kent shot back.

  The boy’s lip trembled, then he turned and ran.

  “What kind of a monster are you?” the father demanded before he ran after his distraught son.

  The mother however just stood there, blinking uncontrollably.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nicole said, not sure what else to say.

  “How did you… How did you know?” the mother asked.

  Kent shrugged in that way that he did when he was being superior. “The hair line. That kid’s got a nearly Dracula high widow’s peak. Neither you, your husband, or your other kids have it.”

  “My husband was right,” the woman sneered then gathered her kids and left.

  Nicole waited until they were out of earshot. “Kent, you can’t keep doing that.”

  “Why not?” Kent asked, leaning over his ball again. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “No matter. You need to show some restraint.”

  Kent stood up straight. “Again, why? They were lying to that boy and he knew it. I gave him the information that he needed to move on.”

  “You don’t know that,” Nicole replied. The profiler really could get annoying when he was high up on his horse.

  “Did you notice that Johnny didn’t say ‘no’ or ‘what are you talking about’? He knew what I said was true. It confirmed his fears. My guess is that he’s asked before. I couldn’t have been the only one to notice the widow’s peak. Plus the hair on his arms swirled rather than ran in a straight line like the rest of the family. There are probably a hundred different such traits I didn’t even notice. But Johnny noticed and wondered.”

  It really was insufferable when Kent was so right. Well, right on his observations, not necessarily on his actions. “It was still that family’s decision to make, not yours.”

  “Really? Because that kid better get some treatment or he is going to have a screwed up life.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The attachment disorder? Didn’t you notice how the family was used to those outbursts and how he refused his mother’s touch? My guess is he was adopted from a Russian orphanage when they thought they couldn’t have kids, then once they got Johnny home, she got pregnant right away. It happens all the time.”

  Nicole knew that she was being nearly as stubborn as Ruben, but it just didn’t seem possible he could have obtained all that information in the space of a few seconds when she hadn’t noticed any of it. It was like they were living on two different planes or something.

  “Russian adoption? Attachment disorder? Are you just making that up to justify your actions?”

  Kent looked over his shoulder at her and shot her a glare. He was known for his many eccentric behaviors, but lying to bolster his rep was definitely not one of them.

  Nicole turned to watch the family. The boy had stalked off, his arms crossed, tears streaking down his face. The mother was trying to console him, but he was having none of it. The father had gotten the course’s manager and was yelling in his face. The manager was turning deeper and deeper shades of red as the conversation continued until he finally put up a hand and started walking towards them.

  “We’ve got to go,” Nicole said as the man stomped over. Unfortunately she was kind of used to this, however it usually involved Kent lifting something. She carried nearly three hundred dollars in her purse to pay for anything Kent “borrowed.”

  “But I was about to make a hole in one,” Kent complained as Nicole dragged him off the course. She took his club and ball, setting them down on the table before striking for the exit. The manager was really hustling to catch up, but Nicole flashed her badge.

  The large man’s determination waivered in the face of a police presence. Finally his feet stalled and she noticed his toes pointed back to the golf course. Crisis averted.

  “Seriously, I can’t take you anywhere,” Nicole complained to Kent as she opened the passenger side door.

  “Why can’t I drive?” Kent asked seeming oblivious to the last few minutes.

  “Just get in the car,” Nicole said. Her tone must have been firm enough because Kent didn’t argue back he just got in for once.

  Nicole rushed around the other side of the car and hopped in, gunning the engine.

  “Why are you mad at me?” Kent asked.

  “We can’t just have a normal game of put-put golf,” Nicole said with a shake of her head.

  “Not fair,” Kent responded. “I was the only chance that boy had.”

&
nbsp; Nicole rolled her eyes, running her fingers through her hair. “You do know there are other ways to go about these things rather than just blurting out hurtful information.”

  “Really?” Kent asked leaning back. Nicole knew she was in trouble before he even opened his mouth. “Because I remember you ready to knock a father around for not letting his son become a daughter.”

  Nicole made a right hand turn, perhaps a little too fast as the wheels squealed. “That’s different.”

  “Really? Because that boy has felt odd and different and “less than” his whole life too. Just like Delia. Now at least he knows he isn’t defective, or a disappointment to his parents. He is just genetically different with a beginning in life that left him with certain challenges. Can you imagine how it’s felt to live in that postcard perfect family and have the pain that boy carries and not knowing why?”

  Nicole chewed her lower lip. Why was Kent always so insufferably right? “You could have talked to the parents.”

  “Yes, because that always goes so well,” Kent scoffed.

  She couldn’t rebuke him. Nicole could have imagined how that conversation might have gone and in the end the parents would have probably decided against telling the boy.

  This way, Kent had ripped off the bandage. It might hurt like heck, but it was out in the open. The wound could now heal.

  “Could you maybe pass this stuff by me first though?” Nicole asked.

  “Why?” Kent asked. “I knew you’d agree with me or I wouldn’t have done it.”

  Nicole didn’t know how to respond and missed a left hand turn out of the complex. Just when she was beginning to fear that Kent was as much as a lone wolf as Lucky 37, he’d go and say something like that.

  “You really thought it through that far?” Nicole asked. Most of the time Kent seemed to be going by the seat of his pants.

  Kent just nodded with that smile he got when he knew he’d won her over.

  Damn him.

  “So where to next?” Nicole asked to try and change the subject.