by J. L. Brown
He gestured to the three-point line with his chin.
“Not bad.”
She smiled, amused, and began stretching while he warmed up. His form was not good, his elbow at a twenty-degree angle to his body.
This should be easy. “I’m glad you called yesterday. This was a great idea.”
“You were so reluctant,” he said. “Thought you were scared.”
She gave him a look in lieu of a response.
He shot the ball and missed. “How’s your case going?”
“It’s going.”
He ran to retrieve the rebound. “Did you check out those liberal blogs I told you about?”
No. “Yeah.”
“Did you find anything helpful?”
“Not yet.”
He continued to shoot.
Jade stretched her hamstrings and looked down to the other end of the court. Some kids were playing three-on-three half-court. She loved listening to their laughter, the unadulterated joy of playing the game: no fans, no lights, no coaches, no refs, no money, no pressure. Just players, a hoop, and a ball. The way it should be. She lifted an eyebrow to Landon.
“Are you ready?”
“Bring it on.”
“Okay.”
She strode to the top of the key and he gave her the ball. She bounced it back to him to check. He twirled it in his hands, uncertainly, and then bounced it back to her. He positioned himself at the free-throw line.
She stared into his eyes. “Really?”
“What?”
Shaking her head once, she eyed the rim and shot the ball. Swish. Nothing but net. He retrieved the ball and bounce passed it to her again. He moved in a couple of steps closer.
She gave him an angelic smile. “Are you sure?”
He nodded his head, and raised his arms into a rigid, classic defensive position, one arm straight up to distract the shot, the other to protect against the drive. She pursed her lips and shot over his outstretched arm. Swish. Again.
He ran after the ball, handed it to her, and moved as close to her as he could.
“Now, you’re learning.” She faked a shot this time and blew by him for a layup.
“Damn it,” he said.
After pulling out to a nine-zero lead, she finally missed a shot and Landon grabbed the rebound.
With the score at ten to three in her favor, he ball faked to the left and drove hard to the basket. Out of position, she ran at an angle toward the spot where he was going to be. He went up for a layup. She stepped into his path, crossing both arms over her chest to take the charge. His body plowed into hers.
She grunted and fell backward, using her arms to cushion her fall.
Landon scrambled up, the ball under one arm. He extended his other hand down to her. “Jade! What’re you doing? Are you crazy?”
She grimaced. “Charge.”
He pulled her up. “Are you all right?” He gazed into her eyes. “Your eyes are so beautiful.”
Before she could react, he leaned down and kissed her.
His lips were soft. She responded.
The applause snapped her out of it.
She jerked her head back.
What was she doing?
She pushed him away and glanced over at the other side of the court. The six kids were lined up near half-court watching them. Clapping.
“Great defense, lady!” a girl yelled.
“Nice kiss, man!” shouted one of the boys. He pretended to kiss another boy and was pushed away for his efforts. The kids laughed and went back to their game.
Jade’s face was hot. She grabbed the ball.
“Personal foul. My ball.”
She dribbled to the top of the key, slapped the ball, and threw it back to him, harder than necessary. “Check.”
“Jade, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Just give me the damn ball. Game point.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Seattle, Washington
I had been observing him for a couple of days, his routine always the same. At the appointed hour, I pressed the down button for the elevator. It stopped on the sixth floor—the one on which I was standing—a few times. A quick, cursory glance inside.
Empty.
I let the doors close and pushed the down button again. While I waited, I thought about Houston, Texas and my encounter with Pete Paxson. When he walked into the parking garage, I had been marveling at his BMW, wondering how much the vehicle cost and how many starving children in Africa—or in the United States, for that matter—it could have fed instead.
Shane Tallent was different than Paxson. He walked to work, minimizing his ecological footprint. At least he had one thing going for him. But it wasn’t enough.
The elevator dinged open bringing me back to the present.
At last, the doors opened to a handsome man with dark hair and a high-wattage smile leaning against a corner.
My prey.
I avoided looking at him as I stepped in and moved to the other side. The man pressed the button for the lobby a couple of times and grinned at me, apologetic. “My son plays youth football. He’s got a game tonight. I’m running late.”
“No problem,” I said.
His grin turned into an odd facial expression. The doors closed.
I did a double take, not quite meeting his eyes. “Hey, you are . . .”
The man grinned. “Afraid so.”
“Wow. I love your show, man. I listen to it all the time.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I took a quick step forward and stabbed him in the stomach. I withdrew the blade and stabbed him again.
“Tallent cannot be your real name . . . right? Is it one of those stage names? You should have selected one more fitting.”
Shane Tallent stared at me, uncomprehending. “Huh?”
I turned and pushed the button to stop the elevator. When I turned back to him, he was staring at his wounds, holding in his intestines with his hands. He started to slide down the wall. He reached the floor and stared up at me. “Why?”
I cannot be one hundred percent sure that is what he said. The word came out gurgled, as blood filled his mouth and began trickling down his chin. Articulation can be difficult after you’ve been stabbed.
It didn’t matter.
She thinks I’m sick.
I pushed thoughts of her out of my mind. I bent down and stabbed him a few more times. It may have been more. I lost count. I did not like using a knife. Too messy. Too risky. It was not as fun for me. I missed my baseball bat. I was glad I would not be around to clean up this mess.
It took a while to remove his tongue. Stubborn.
Out of my backpack, I grabbed my charcoal gray hoodie and put it on and zipped it up, pulling the hood over my head. I would fit right in walking the streets of downtown Seattle. I placed the knife and tongue in separate plastic bags and placed them in my backpack. The blood on my black jeans was visible to me, but probably not to someone else at a distance.
I pressed the button to restart the elevator.
Prior to the door opening, I knelt by the slumped body. Shane Tallent seemed so peaceful. And, once and for all, silent.
“By the way, I lied. I hated your show.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Washington, DC
Jade arrived home from work Wednesday night, trying not to trip over Card as she walked to the kitchen.
She foraged in the bare refrigerator trying to scrounge up enough food from different leftovers to make a meal. As the food warmed in the microwave, she thought about playing ball with Landon last weekend.
While eating at her small kitchen table, she kicked herself mentally for allowing him to kiss her.
After dinner, she grabbed her journal from the wall. She settled into a corner of the couch and began writing phrases. After a few minutes, she had written:
Senator Fairchild
The next US president
My own match.com
Horrible. S
he read the poem again. She would never be published or win any prizes, which was okay. She wrote for herself.
Her cell phone rang. She swept it off the coffee table and eyed the display. Ethan. Ten-thirty p.m. Not good.
She answered. “Harrington.”
“He struck again.”
“Where?”
“Seattle.”
“When?”
“About seven p.m. Pacific. The body was found about fifteen minutes later. I’ve booked you and your team out of Dulles. Your flight leaves in two hours.”
*
A subset of the CONFAB team drove away from Sea-Tac airport onto I-5 North toward Seattle. With Max in the back seat and Christian driving, Jade surveyed the beautiful juxtaposition of the Olympic Mountains and the Cascades with the Puget Sound. Mount Rainier decided to make an appearance today. The rain did not. They stalled in traffic behind a blue minivan with a family decal on the rear window showing a stick figure of a daddy, mommy, three kids, and a dog. Jade shook her head; she believed those decals were road maps for predators.
Christian double-parked in front of an office building on Madison Street in downtown Seattle. Blue “12” flags—a tribute to the Seattle Seahawks’ fans—were everywhere. They hung from poles, covered office windows, flapped on car antennas. Several police and unmarked vehicles were parked near the building’s entrance, their lights and sirens off. On the sidewalk, a homeless man, his entire belongings wrapped up in a sleeping bag nearby, hopped past them, playing a game of hopscotch with imaginary lines.
A uniformed police officer met them inside the carousel doors and led them past a long marble desk manned by a security guard and through a modern lobby toward the back of the building. One of the four elevators gaped open, yellow crime scene tape draped across it.
A young man with shoulder-length hair came up to them and offered his hand.
“Agent Harrington? I’m Detective Kurt McClaine. I spoke to you on the phone.”
He resembled Kurt Cobain—former lead singer of the famous Seattle rock band, Nirvana—and Jade almost did a double take. McClaine, with his slight frame and sporting a dangling gold earring in one ear and a tattoo snaking up his neck, appeared more like a rocker than a detective. Despite the crisp September day, he wore a black t-shirt with Don’t Kill My Vibe in white letters on the front.
He shook her hand. “Yeah, I was named after him. My parents were into the grunge scene.” He laughed. “They still are.” He shook the rest of the agents’ hands and said, “Good to meet you, man.” Jade always thought the term “man” between men who were strangers brought an immediate intimacy and bond lacking in any expressions women used. McClaine gestured toward the elevators. “This way.”
As they walked, Detective McClaine continued, “The victim, Shane Tallent, worked on the thirty-third floor.”
McClaine pointed at the corner of the elevator. “He was found and killed here.” Massive amounts of dried blood had congealed on the floor. “The UNSUB got on the elevator at the sixth floor.”
“Camera?” Jade asked.
“He knew where it was. He averted his face.”
Jade examined the blood spatter on the walls and the few drops on the ceiling. “The UNSUB must have got blood on him.”
“Probably.”
“No one saw anything? No witnesses?”
“No. It was after work hours, and the security in this building is pretty lax. We interviewed the guard on duty. He was reading a book at the time, but he remembered someone wearing a dark hoodie leaving around the time of the murder. He couldn’t be sure whether it was a man or a woman, but thought the former. The camera by the guard’s desk confirmed his account. We haven’t determined, yet, when the perp entered the building.”
“How many stab wounds?” Christian asked.
“Twelve.”
Christian whistled.
McClaine nodded. “The perp obliterated the vic’s internal organs—arteries, major muscles. The guy was butchered.”
She glanced down at the bloodstain on the floor and then at Max. She murmured, “This isn’t his usual MO.”
Max nodded, apparently lost in thought.
McClaine’s eyes shifted from Max to Jade. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. It’s just—”
The detective’s phone rang. “Yeah.” He listened. He glanced at Jade. “We’ll be right there.”
*
The agents followed Detective McClaine down a wide alley two blocks away from Shane Tallent’s office building. Evidence of America’s number-one “green” city, according to Jade’s brief research on Seattle she conducted on the flight, was absent: dirty food wrappers, bottles, napkins, soft-drink cups, and Styrofoam containers littered the alley. The stench was overpowering.
A police officer walked up to them. “Over here, Detective.”
The officer guided them down the alley. “The owner of a Chinese restaurant,” the officer continued, pointing to a black door with peeling paint, “witnessed a man throwing something in her dumpster.”
Jade’s pulse accelerated. “Did she get a good look at him?”
The composite they had received based on the information provided by the San Francisco witness, Kevin Burke, turned out to be garbage. She hadn’t bothered to send it out to anyone.
The officer shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. The establishments around here have an understanding they don’t use each other’s dumpsters. She was ticked off and dug through the trash, coming up with this bag. She decided to open it.”
They all leaned in to peer inside the bag. A knife greeted them, coated with a massive amount of blood. It appeared to be eight inches long, and thick. A blanket and a few other items lay underneath.
Detective McClaine surveyed the alley. “The perp didn’t try very hard to hide the evidence, if this belonged to him.” He paused. “It better belong to him. Otherwise, I have two major crimes on my hands instead of one.” He laughed without humor. “There are a million places in this city to hide this bag and it would’ve never been found.”
Christian stood with his hands on his hips. “Maybe he was in a hurry.”
A quiet interjection from Max: “Or maybe he wanted it to be found.”
McClaine glanced at Max and then stared at the bag, unconvinced. The three agents—Jade, Christian, and Max—McClaine, and the police officer continued to stare at the bag, as if it would divulge the answers if only they were patient.
Finally, the officer cleared his throat. “That’s not all.” He guided them to the back door of the Chinese restaurant, bent down, and—with latex gloves—opened a carton of takeout Chinese food. With uncomfortable closeness, everyone again bent over to peer inside the small carton.
A coiled tongue lay within.
Christian stepped back. “Jesus.”
The officer tilted the carton at a forty-five-degree angle. Tongue Lo Mein to go was scrawled in black magic marker on the side of the carton.
“I presume that’s not on the menu,” Jade said.
“The UNSUB has a sense of humor,” Max said, “and he left us a calling card.”
*
Despite it being midweek and late at night, the Sea-Tac airport was crowded. Jade, Christian, and Max sat next to each other, seats far away from the gate, each deep in thought as they waited for their red-eye flight back to DC to be announced.
Jade leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed.
“What about the switch of MO? A blunt object in the first four killings, which he either took with him or disposed of. In this one, a knife. A knife he left for us to find.”
Christian, seated across from her, bent forward to rest his arms on his thighs. “Copycat killing?”
Next to her, Max stirred. He hadn’t been sleeping, but thinking. Always processing. “Not necessarily. It’s not unusual for a serial killer to change his modus operandi. In the seventies, Gary Taylor started off by hitting women over the head with a wrench at bus stops before moving on to
shooting them. He then moved on to machetes.”
“Nice,” Christian said.
Jade, eyes still closed, grimaced. “Max, maybe you do need a hobby.”
Max continued, as if they hadn’t said anything. “This killer studies his victims and their habits. He does his homework.”
“He seems to be able to travel wherever and whenever he wants,” Christian said.
“Which leads me to believe he has means and a flexible occupation,” Max said. “He also diverted us with the San Francisco incident.”
Jade yawned, but cut it short as her phone vibrated. “Harrington.”
It was McClaine. “We got a hit on the knife. It was purchased two days ago from a Federal Army and Navy Surplus store on First Avenue. The knife is a Columbia River eleven-twenty-one Elishewitz Anubis.”
Jade balled her hand into a fist. “Any description on the perp?”
“The owner remembers the buyer well: He was wearing a hoodie, but the owner observed he had short, light brown or dark blond hair. Here’s the interesting part. The guy wasn’t a local. He had an accent. The owner couldn’t place it, but guessed East Coast. The buyer told him he was going camping and purchased the knife, blanket, a flashlight, and a few other items.”
“Were all those items found in the bag?”
“Yes. All unused. Except for the knife, of course. The owner is coming in tomorrow to ID the items and to assist us with a facial composite.”
“Thank you, Detective. Feel free to call me anytime.”
“You’re welcome. Good night and have a nice flight.”
She called the local FBI office in Seattle, conveying the information to the special agent in charge with follow-up instructions. Jade hung up, as their flight to DC was called.
Was the UNSUB getting sloppy or playing games with them? And, if the latter, why?
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
New York, New York
The moderator stared into the camera.
“Good evening. This is Blaine Jones and welcome to Radio City Musical Hall in New York City. The candidates have agreed to new rules for this election. Tonight will be the first, last, and only presidential debate between the Democratic nominee, Senator Whitney Fairchild of Missouri”—Whitney smiled for the camera while Jones paused for the applause—“and the president of the United States, Richard Ellison.”
