by Scott Pratt
A horn sounded behind him. He looked up and realized the light was green. How long had he been sitting there? “Damn it! Keep it together!” He eased the car into motion, joining the flow of traffic. The driver who’d blown his horn came speeding past with his middle finger extended. A nice, friendly gesture on a Sunday. He returned it in kind.
It didn’t take long for the thoughts of his mother to return. He’d had no real childhood, and he hated his mother for that. She’d finally done him a favor and given him the opportunity to do away with her when he was 16 years old. She should never have traded sex for that gun. Her “funeral” was a joke. They didn’t go to church and had no money, so a few of the other whores she hung around with and a couple of the men she’d banged threw a little party in her back yard before he was removed from the home by social services. The funeral was the same as her life. A sham and a waste of time.
He spent the last two years of adolescence being raised by his aunt, who didn’t really want him but took him in, he supposed, because she felt she had to. She was a decent woman, unlike her sister, but she had little time for him and made that abundantly clear on a regular basis. Something in him drove him to finish high school, though, and a guidance counselor at school helped him apply for government grants so he could go to college. He worked part-time jobs and managed to graduate in four years. He found a profession that would allow him to help others, and he was good at it. But he’d always known the rage that smoldered within him would find its way to the surface one day and boil over like a volcano.
He smiled as he parked his car in his assigned space. His plans to make the world a better place had evolved over the years. Now he was cleaning up a couple of cities, one dead hooker at a time.
Chapter Nine
Brooke was in Chief Tanner McConnell’s office at precisely eight on Monday morning. The office was a mixture of old and new. Several pictures of officers and detectives that appeared to have been taken in the 1940s adorned the walls. Chief McConnell sat behind a giant oak desk that looked slightly out of place in the smallish room. A bookshelf behind him had various police souvenirs he had picked up from different agencies during his thirty-some-odd years of police work, along with the obligatory model car fashioned after the cars being driven by Kingsport officers today.
“Please, sit,” he said, indicating a chair with a sweep of his arm. “Thanks for coming in, Brooke. I just want to talk about Friday night to see how things went.”
“You mean sending me to Johnson City?”
“Exactly. How did it go?”
“As well as could be expected, I guess,” Brooke said. “I think the murders are connected, and a working agreement between the two departments can only help.”
“Great. We were hoping that would be the case, and by we, I mean Chief Armstrong and myself,” he said. “I know this type of arrangement is somewhat out of the ordinary, but we think it will help us catch this killer faster. Where are we exactly?”
“We have a few small leads, but so far this guy hasn’t made any serious mistakes.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
He paused a moment and trained his gaze on her for several beats before continuing.
“I’m catching some pretty serious heat, Brooke. We have to get this maniac stopped. I know you’re a good detective, and you have a bright future here with the department. But you need to know there’s been talk from City Hall of asking the District Attorney to bring in the TBI. If they come in, they’ll take over and shut you out. I’ve got the powers that be calmed down for now. In fact, this experiment with you and their detective over in Johnson City has bought us some more time. But we need to get something going. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Keep me posted and make sure they treat you good over there.” He stood up, indicating the meeting was over.
Brooke got to her feet and nodded. “I will, and thanks for your confidence.”
Brooke walked out of his office feeling a slight twinge of nausea. If the cases were turned over to an outside agency such as the TBI, it would mean only one thing – she wasn’t good enough. And she hated the thought of not being good enough.
Worse, it could also lend credence to all the people who said she was just riding her daddy’s coattails. She’d heard it all. The barbs were cruel and varied, like the one she heard about how it’s fitting that her initials were “B.S.” since her career was, too. There were those who insinuated that her looks had helped her advance, not her brain or hard work. And then there were the inevitable, vicious rumors about how she had gained success by spreading her legs for the right men. Those rumors infuriated her. Not once had she even come close to sleeping with a superior. That was absolutely taboo. It had been hammered into her from the start by her dad. She had never, and would never, become involved in a romantic affair with anyone in her department. But it seemed no matter how hard she worked, her male contemporaries refused to acknowledge that she was good at what she did. She let out a sigh and told herself to stop thinking negatively. To hell with those guys. She couldn’t control what they thought.
She walked through the station, eventually ending up in her squad room, which seemed particularly busy this morning. Of course it was busy. Women were dying. The files on her desk commanded her attention. She snatched them up and headed for the rear door of the station and the outside world where she could have some privacy. She walked briskly to her car, tossed the files into the front passenger seat, and drove out of the lot.
Her mind replayed the chief’s warning that the case might be taken from her like a broken record. Suddenly, she remembered Lukas asking her to call him after the meeting. Her call was answered on the second ring.
“Hey Brooke, how’d it go?”
“Not terrible, not great.”
“What gives?”
“There’s been some talk of handing these cases over to the TBI. And from the sound of it, I assume they’re talking about your cases, too. Apparently, bringing you and me together was an effort to keep the wolves at bay. Both chiefs were in on it. They’re calling it an experiment, but what they’re really doing is buying time to keep the TBI out.”
“And where do you think we stand now?’
“We’d better get some results.”
“I checked on the rope lead, but it didn’t go anywhere. I found a possible match at a local hardware store. If it’s the same rope, and that’s a very big if, the only record of it being sold was to a Boy Scout troop. I’ll get the names of the troop leaders and see if anything pops.”
“What’s the theory, a dad of one of the members?”
“It’s thin, but I’m going to check it anyway.”
“It could have been bought over here. I’ll check on it now.”
“Okay. I’ve been thinking about our next move. We need to get out on the street. At night, when they’re out, if they haven’t all gone underground. Sometimes, the best way to wash a dog is to get in the tub with it. What do you say?”
“I’m up for anything. I’m tired of sitting on my hands waiting. What time and where?”
“If he sticks to alternating cities, Kingsport is next. Let’s start there, and if we strike out, we move over to Johnson City. Let’s do it without backup. I don’t want a bunch of cops on the street. I don’t want a lot of radio chatter. He might have a scanner. Let’s just get out there and see how it feels. Who knows what might happen?”
“What time do you want to start?” Brooke said.
“I was thinking probably six tonight.”
“Okay. That’ll give me time to check out the rope lead and get some other things done. Can you text me a couple of photos of the rope?”
“Sure. Is there anything you need help with?”
“No, but if it turns into anything, I’ll be sure to shout.”
Brooke disconnected the call and turned her
thoughts to Lukas’s idea about the abortion poster. She called a nurse she knew at the Sullivan County health clinic and gave her the names of her murder victims and, just to be thorough, the two from Johnson City. She wanted to know if there was any connection between any of them. Maybe a connection, however tenuous, could provide a link as to how they were being targeted. The nurse told Brooke it would be later in the day before she could pull the files.
Brooke swung through a fast food joint for a coffee hoping to change her gloomy disposition. She remembered the rope. While she waited for her coffee, she checked to see if Lukas had sent the photographs. He had.
She visited several hardware and home improvement stores, but she came up empty. They either didn’t have that particular type of rope or had no way to track it. She decided on an early lunch and while she ate in the parking lot she flipped through the murder files. Could this be a turf war between pimps? In a city this size? It didn’t seem likely considering the murders from the two cities fit the same general MO. And pimps didn’t usually migrate from city to city. But it was worth shaking a few trees to see if anything fell out.
She placed a call to the vice detectives and came up with the name and address of Alvin Nelasco, a well-known pimp in Kingsport. According to them, her second victim had worked for him. Brooke had heard Nelasco’s name but had never met him. She finished her meal, started the car and decided today would be a good day to make his acquaintance.
The address she’d been given by vice turned out to be an apartment on Stonegate Road. She knocked on the door and was surprised when Nelasco opened the door almost immediately. He was a short man of Hispanic descent. His arms and neck were covered in tattoos. His head was shaved, and a black goatee effectively finished off the menacing look he was obviously trying to convey. Brooke held up her badge.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Nope. Friendly chat.”
“And why would I do that? Every time I talk to five-oh, I wind up in jail. But you are one fine mamacita. I might talk to you if you promise to search me.”
“In your dreams, Alvin.” Brooke took out a picture of Melanie Salem. “You know her, right?”
He looked at the picture for a few seconds then back at Brooke suspiciously. “You know I do or you wouldn’t be here. I haven’t seen her in months, though.”
“Did you know she’s dead? Murdered.”
“I may have heard something like that.”
“Where did you hear it?”
“Just word on the street.”
“If you know more than you’re telling me and I find out later that you withheld information in an ongoing murder investigation, it won’t go well for you.”
“I don’t know anything about her murder, and I don’t remember where I heard it.”
Brooke looked at the man closely, trying to read him. She held up a photo of the first victim, Cindy Sullivan. “What about this girl?”
“I’ve seen her around. She goes by Sullie, I think. She never worked for me, though.”
“Who did she work for?”
“She was a free-ranger. She didn’t work for nobody.”
“So, you know she was murdered, too?”
“I don’t live in a cave. Why are you here? I don’t know anything about them murders.”
“I was thinking maybe you and another pimp might have a beef and these girls got in the middle. Or maybe Melanie Salem held back some money or was turning tricks on the side and you got pissed off.”
“You don’t think that, or I would’ve already had the pleasure of you running those fine young hands over me.”
Brooke continued to read him. He was calm. He had no history of beating on his girls. She didn’t think he had anything to do with the murders.
“So how about helping me out. These murders can’t be good for business. Who do you think killed them? Have you heard anything that might help me? It’d get you a lot of love going forward if you can help us out.”
He stepped away from the door and into the apartment, lighting a cigarette as he moved. Brooke followed him inside.
“I got no clue who it is,” Nelasco said. “All I’ve heard is that some nut job is out there killing girls. I heard two got whacked over in JC, too. All the girls are scared out of their minds, and I don’t blame them. They’re only doing business with the johns they know well. And you’re right, business is down. You guys need to get off your asses and catch this dude.”
“What about Draxton Little?” According to vice, Little was Nelasco’s chief rival.
“He’s a puta, a little bitch. But no way he’s killing these girls. He isn’t crazy, and besides, he wouldn’t have the cojones.”
“Have any of your girls mentioned a red car driving around during business hours?”
He crushed his cigarette into an ashtray. “No, why?”
“It’s just something we’re looking at. Have they mentioned anyone overly suspicious?”
“Not to me.”
Brooke fished out a card and handed it to him. “I want you to text me the numbers of your girls. Start with the most active ones.”
He took the card. “They won’t talk to you.”
“They’d better. Or your parole officer and I will be here for a surprise visit.”
“And just when I thought we were connecting.”
“We’ll connect if I don’t get those numbers.”
“How about a little police brutality before you go?”
Brooke turned to leave. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“I might.”
“Trust me.”
Brooke glanced at her phone as she climbed into her car and noticed she’d missed a call while she was talking to Nelasco. There was a voicemail. It turned out to be the nurse from the health clinic. She said her records didn’t show any connection between the women Brooke had asked about. The women from Johnson City had never been treated in Sullivan County. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the Kingsport women’s records, other than the fact that Melanie Salem had an abortion two years ago. There was no record of where the procedure had been performed, but Brooke had a pretty good idea.
When she returned to her desk at the station she looked up the number for The Cooper Center for Reproductive Health. She hoped she could do this without a subpoena and was pleasantly surprised when a nurse supervisor named Lindsay McIntire answered the phone. She knew Lindsay from when Lindsay worked in the ER. Brooke got just what she needed. Melanie Salem had in fact had an abortion at the Cooper Center. It was still too early to tell for sure, but maybe Lukas was onto something with the abortion angle.
Brooke looked at her watch. The afternoon had flown by. It was time to get ready for the sting.
***
When they finally met at an abandoned factory just outside of Kingsport, Brooke’s nerves were buzzing. She felt like a live wire. She noticed Lukas seemed to have that same vibe going. Brooke told Lukas about checking on the rope, the abortion clinic lead, and her interview with Nelasco.
“You should check in Johnson City to see if either of those victims had an abortion,” Brooke said. If so, we keep working the angle until we find something that might lead us to the killer.”
“But only one of your victims had an abortion, right?”
“Right.”
“Sounds like a rabbit hole.”
“Shouldn’t you check anyway?”
Lukas nodded. “Yeah. I’ll check. How about the pimp? You think he’s telling the truth?”
“I do. He’s worried about his cash flow. He wants us to find the guy. Are you ready to do this?
“Sure,” Lukas said.
The area Brooke chose for the surveillance was lively. It was in the old part of Kingsport known locally as Five Points – or The Train District – altho
ugh there weren’t many trains operating these days.
There were the usual nocturnal creatures out, and Brooke and Lukas sat and watched, hoping for any sign, any clue. A red car cruising the area would be a nice start, but after three hours and no sign of anything unusual, they decided to call it a night.
Brooke and Lukas were on their way back to Lukas’s car when Lukas’s phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He hit the speaker button and said, “Hey, Rafe. What’s up?”
“We need you back over here ASAP. We have another body.”
“Shit. We’re on our way. Text me the address.”
He turned to Brooke, and she could feel the stress level rising.
“I don’t believe it,” Lukas said. “The son of a bitch got another one.”
PART II
Chapter Ten
Lukas felt a rush of adrenaline as he headed back to Johnson City with Brooke right behind him. His foot was heavy on the gas. The car’s lights were flashing, the siren blaring, and he laid on the air horn when he came to an intersection. Less than fifteen minutes after the call, he and Brooke arrived at the address Rafe had texted to him. He skidded to a stop just behind the department command post and emerged while it was still rocking. He looked back just as Brooke got out of her car. The address turned out to be an upper middle-class neighborhood, something Lukas didn’t expect.
All the usual equipment was already on the scene, and all the players were present. He and Brooke walked through the throng of people. The impact this latest body was having didn’t quite hit him until he realized they were in the mayor’s driveway. The mayor’s driveway? What the hell?
Lukas sensed something else different about the scene, but he couldn’t quite figure it out. The other detectives stood around talking in hushed tones. Even Captain Hunter – who was boisterous in almost every situation – seemed subdued as Lukas made his way toward the body. It had been covered by a white sheet that was now soaked in blood.
