Danger Returns in Pairs (Shawn Danger Mysteries Book 2)

by Nina Post

  "What's up?" Sarah asked.

  "I found the kill site."

  "Not something I hear every day."

  ***

  The department's Public Information Officer, Craig Dahl, had a permanent Winnie-the-Pooh expression that caused the press to occasionally overreact to what he was telling them, and to infer terrible news when there wasn't any. Rumor had it that one time, Dahl looked so grave that some members of the media jumped to conclusions and started to report on what they assumed was the worst possible result of a crime before Dahl had even started talking. Once the department realized what happened, they had to perform publicity triage.

  If the department didn't want people to assume the worst, they chose someone to tickle Dahl right before a press conference, because along the line, someone found out he was extremely sensitive to being tickled. With that preparation, Dahl's expression would be upgraded from lugubrious to merely somber. There was also an unwritten agreement that the PIO wouldn't submit a complaint about inappropriate touching.

  "Hello, Detective. What can I do for you?" Dahl looked up from his laptop like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Shawn knew it wasn't put on -- he just looked like that.

  "I'm about to generate a profile for the suspect on the Stowe homicide. I'd like to work with you afterward on creating a strategy for a series of media releases."

  "Sure thing. Any initial thoughts?"

  Shawn rubbed the back of his neck. "You're the expert, but I'm thinking we present our most confident information right up front -- "

  "See what effect that has." Dahl nodded once and sat back. "I agree."

  "Then add detail over the rest of the releases," Shawn added. He might not be able to pin this on Brower, not yet, but their suspect would probably be stressed by proactive techniques like media releases. "I'm leaving for the day in a few minutes," Dahl said, "so we can work on those first thing tomorrow."

  Shawn headed back to his desk and drummed his fingers lightly over the keyboard without actually typing. Tricky thing, creating a profile. He wanted to provide enough information to give someone who did know the offender something to recognize, without being too broad, but most of what he had was speculation. He started with a list draft. Dahl would approve the final version.

  -- White, mid-thirties, approximately six foot three, 200 lbs, strong build.

  -- Has some college education -- Brower didn't get his degree.

  -- Former Army. -- He'd found at least that much.

  -- Probably lives in Erie, with close access to downtown. May frequent Presque Isle.

  -- May own a white van

  -- May wear a wig, with dark hair to shoulders

  -- Probably holds a regular job, may have a regular route, may have tasks that require him to drive off-site

  -- May be exhibiting recent injuries.

  -- May be in the company of a blonde 5'5 female, late thirties.

  The Korea vet was found with very similar wounds. If he spitballed, Brower killed that veteran as stand-in for his father. Then why would he kill Jasper? Putting too much emphasis on it could bite him in the ass later. For now, what did he know about Brower that probably wouldn't have changed?

  -- Intelligent, methodical, conceited, territorial. Will not seek out social contacts for personal gratification. Those who interact with him may describe him as angry.

  He ended it with, 'Anyone who knows someone fitting the profile is asked to call Erie police detectives on the Tip Hotline.' Dahl could fill in the number he wanted.

  The Zippo lighters. That was specific information he wasn't going to release to the public, but maybe he could put it in a broader context and not have to confine it to Brower. He added, May collect war memorabilia. He didn't want to specify the Vietnam War, their fathers' war.

  It was frustrating, finding that note in Jasper's mouth but no evidence. He knew Brower and still couldn't find him.

  Shawn worked on the profile for another fifteen minutes, making it as clear as possible. He looked at it from the point of view of a person wondering if this was someone they knew. If this person thought the suspect sounded familiar, would the profile be helpful?

  He sent the profile to Dahl to put some lipstick on it, then took a quick break to the bathroom. On his way back, he spoke briefly to another detective about the case, and by the time he reached his desk, Dahl had already responded with his version. He had kept pretty much everything Shawn sent over, but rearranged it and used his particular style of writing to recast some things. With that task done, they went back and forth a few more times on the strategy for a series of releases.

  A thought flashed through his mind that he should cross-check white vans with the unsolved cases, but he got distracted when Dahl updated him to say that he released the profile. Shawn checked that item off his list then felt his phone buzz. "I'm not going to the party!" he muttered, realizing he sounded too cantankerous -- and that thinking of the word cantankerous probably indicated that very thing.

  "Lieutenant Danger? This is Officer Josh Kirby. I'm Paul Harmon's protective detail."

  The background noise was raucous, and that was an understatement.

  Shawn raised his voice, because Kirby was practically yelling. "What's the problem, Officer?" Why else would he be calling, to say that everything was going great?

  "I'm at the Tullio Arena and, uh…I think I lost Mr. Harmon."

  Kirby meant the Erie Insurance Arena, though Shawn would always call it the Tullio, after the six-term mayor of Erie who lobbied for a convention center since the early seventies and fought like a scrapper to get it built. It had been the Tullio for nearly thirty years. Shawn wasn't about to change that in his mind because of a change of ownership. He's grown up knowing it as the Tullio and would keep thinking of it as the Tullio, dammit, though usually he tried to roll with the changes, as the song went.

  "How long has it been since you lost him?" Shawn asked.

  He understood that the arena was in desperate need of improvements, and anyone who helped pay for that could slap their name on it, but why not name it the Tullio Erie Insurance Arena and maintain the man's legacy? When he hit his mid-thirties, he noticed that the world was now cluttered with things that provoked his wrath.

  "Maybe seven minutes." Kirby's voice was high and fraught with worry. "He was at the concession and I looked away for just a second."

  "Okay. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." The arena was very close to the police headquarters, but he gave himself some extra time. "Where are you?"

  "Right in front of the pepperoni balls."

  Chapter 10

  Monday night

  Shawn read out the huge blue, white, and gray banner hanging above the doors of the arena. "The Superstars of TNA IMPACT WRESTLING invade the Erie Insurance Arena! TNA's 'The Road To Slammiversary World Tour.' Great, my suit'll be a big hit here."

  The roar hit him as soon as he walked through a set of the front doors. He found the concession area, and then followed his nose to the pepperoni balls. Officer Kirby, a very nervous, unsettled guy with a thin face, long nose, and a high metabolism rushed over and gestured to the food stand. "He was right there. I looked that way for threats," he pointed down the hall, "and when I turned back, Harmon wasn't there."

  A burly man with a beard exited the stadium section through the double doors closest to them. A booming voice announced the imminent arrival of one of the wrestlers, who was "gonna keep chasing you to Slammiversary -- and right into hell!" The crowd went wild.

  "Maybe he changed his mind about the food and went back to the seats?" Shawn offered. Kirby shrugged, but every muscle in his face was tensed. "Don't worry," Shawn said. "You were doing your job. Things happen."

  "I should have kept continuous positive control on Mr. Harmon."

  "Your job is to watch for threats, and that's what you did. If your wife showed up and you snuck off with her for twenty minutes, well, I'd fire you on the spot."

  "Oh no, sir, I would never --
"

  "And you didn't. So just show me where his seat was and we'll check there." Kirby nodded, face tight, and led Shawn down the hall then through one of the entrances into the arena, which immediately assaulted him with smoke effects, flashing green and yellow lights, and a giant digital billboard. A shirtless wrestler slowly faced different sections of the crowd from the center ring.

  "Sköll Thorgest never backs down from a fight," the wrestler roared. "And RJ, when I confronted you, you walked away like a little bitch. Now guess what, RJ: it's going to be Sköll Thorgest versus RJ Gacki one more time! But I don't want to wait til Slammiversary to kick your ass, RJ! I want to do it right here in Erie-fucking-Pennsylvania, so bring it on!"

  The crowd roared while Kirby checked the bottom of the end seat for the right number.

  Thorgest inserted a mouth guard and stalked the ring as another wrestler came sauntering out toward the ring then climbed through the ropes. RJ Gacki, Shawn presumed. The second wrestler said, "Sköll, I'm proud to tell you and everyone here that I never back down! And I dare you -- I double dog dare you," he laughed, "to show up. You're gonna get destroyed, boy!" There was a dramatic pause. "And I'm not gonna wait 'til next week to fight." Gacki tossed Sköll to the mat and the crowd went wild, stomping and shouting.

  Shawn wanted to be home with Sarah and Comet. Maybe it was the pepperoni balls, but he wanted to pop a frown pizza in the oven and watch something like Sherlock, Jr. "What does double dog dare you even mean?" he muttered.

  To his surprise, Kirby answered him. "Oh, it means that one person made a dare and the other person refused, so the first person ups the ante by saying if the person he dared actually performs the dare, then he'll also perform the dare."

  "So the dare is that they both show up."

  "Right. They show up to this fight. And then, you know…fight."

  Shawn had no idea who was fighting whom, but he wasn't paying close attention to the dynamics.

  Kirby signaled to Shawn then walked down a row in front of fans who were pumping their fists in the air and shouting "WHOO!" Most of the fans were holding up camera phones, making Shawn think that he would have to get even more surveillance footage, this time from the arena. Kirby was very polite and said "excuse me" when he passed in front of each person.

  Apparently Paul had been sitting in the very middle of the row. As he walked behind Kirby, someone yelled, "Get the fuck out of the way, suit!" and someone else yelled, "Move, Bunyan!"

  Shawn supposed they meant him, because not only did he fit those descriptions, but Kirby was in uniform and welterweight.

  "Hey, Green Giant, down in front!"

  "Ohhh noooo!" The announcer used several syllables. "Look who's here to show everyone who's boss! It's THE GIGAN!"

  Kirby leaned in towards Shawn and said, "Gigan is a cybernetic space monster and Godzilla's most feared opponent."

  "Who, the wrestler?"

  "No, the kaiju from the Godzilla movies." Kirby's voice was almost at a yell. "He has a buzzsaw weapon on its front, blades or hooks for hands, and retractable wings. That's why Gigan, the wrestler, does aerial slams."

  Shawn shrugged.

  Kirby looked over his shoulder at Shawn. "Godzilla vs. Gigan?"

  "Haven't seen it. Wait -- is that a movie?"

  "Godzilla vs. Megalon?"

  "No. What are you talking about?"

  Kirby looked disappointed. "Anyway, this is Mr. Harmon's seat." Clearly, Paul wasn't there. It occurred to Shawn they should have split up so Kirby could have checked the seat while he checked the nearby bathrooms. "Let's go check the bathrooms now," Shawn yelled in Kirby's ear over the noise. He looked forward to breathing outside air, not the effluvia of corn dogs, beer, and smoke effects.

  Paul wasn't in the men's restrooms or anywhere else, at least that they saw. They had him paged and waited ten minutes. Nothing. Shawn wanted to escape the noise as well as the arena miasma, so he headed outside into the chilly night air. Kirby ran his hand back and forth over his buzz cut. "I'm real sorry, Detective."

  "Don't worry about it," Shawn said, liking that Kirby called him Detective. "You're not in any trouble. Why don't you go home."

  Kirby nodded and gave him a halfhearted smile. "By the way, Megalon is a giant beetle."

  "Good to know," Shawn said to himself as he watched Kirby jog away.

  ***

  According to her testy duplex neighbor/former friend, Dee Albert spent every Monday night at Sandra Bell Worker's Bar, a fisherman's dive located near the Isle. His suit and tie would go over gangbusters there, too, but that's what he wore, and he was used to it.

  Sarah had wanted to go, but she was more interested in filming events and scenes, not interviews. "But my interviews are great!" Shawn had protested. It hadn't worked. Funny that he was so against her making a documentary about the investigation in the first place, but when she wasn't there with that Canon in front of her head, his lead-chasing didn't quite feel right.

  "I'm envious," Sarah had said on the phone. "Slammiversary and the Sandra Bell Worker's Bar in the same night?"

  "I'm sure there's a monster truck rally and a union protest you can go to and even out the score."

  A bar with this much beer and liquor soaked into the wood always made him think of his father. But he was looking for John Brower's aunt, not sent by his mother to get his dad to come home. As a little kid looking for his dad in a bar, he refused to acknowledge how scared he was, how gigantic and menacing the adults seemed to him. He couldn't even look around him, he was so terrified, so he had probably looked like a ferociously focused and single-minded eight-year-old.

  He pulled on the large wood handle and grimaced. Once inside, he discreetly took out a tiny bottle of Purell and sanitized his hands.

  Not only did he just have a driver's license photo to go on, but he had to find her in a room so dark he needed night-vision goggles. He knew from the photo that Dee Albert had a mess of shaggy, dirty blonde hair and bug eyes, so Shawn wound slowly past the bar, checking. Haggard faces turned his way, unhurried, like mudskippers noticing a crab.

  The atmosphere was charged, but not in a way that raised his hackles. There was a low murmur of anticipation, and he noticed, once his eyes got used to the dark, that almost everyone was readying a piece of paper. The lights flickered and got brighter by a minuscule amount. What the hell was going on?

  Finally, he spotted her alone on a booth seat, paper and highball glass in front of her. "Dee Albert?"

  She flicked her eyes up to him with the suspicion of a feral cat. "Who wants to know?"

  Shawn thought she could explore a promising career doing voice-overs for action movie trailers or bleak noir thrillers. "Shawn Danger."

  She barked out a laugh. "You're fucking with me."

  "Nope." He showed her the badge. She rapped her knuckles on the table while she stared at him. He half-expected her hand to stick to the table. Eventually she gave a nearly imperceptible nod, mouth tight at the corners. He glanced at the opposite bench seat for any obvious pools of liquid -- body or bottle -- then sat. He sensed she needed a gentle approach.

  Every homicide investigation necessitated at least one trip to the dry cleaner, so he was accustomed to it. He'd won 'Best Customer' from that cleaner two years in a row.

  The paper in front of her was a bingo card. He looked from it to her, surprised.

  "You ever see a bingo card before, Mr. Danger?"

  "Once or twice. Ms. Albert. And it's Detective Lieutenant."

  She sat back in her seat. "The hell you want, Detective Danger? Sounds like a kid's TV show."

  Not a bad idea. He and Sarah could do their own show, for kids.

  The lights flickered. The buzz in the bar sharpened. "What's going on here?" he asked.

  "Almost time for Meat Bingo."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You heard me, Detective. And we're gonna have a word about that in a minute." Dee lowered her finger and pointed at his chest. She withdrew the finger then turne
d her attention to the man in the middle of the room. The man turned in a half circle while holding up a piece of paper. "Tonight, at Sandra Bell, we have," he paused dramatically, "two meatloafs, two wild turkeys, one rabbit, and two honey-glazed hams! Good luck to all players!" A cheer rose. The man started to call out the numbers. Dee Albert pursed her lips in disappointment.

  "I need to ask you some questions about John Brower," Shawn said before Dee finished looking for the pair. She held up a finger, then raised her chin, eyes lingering on the card until the last second. "John? What about him?"

  "Are you still in contact with him?"

  She blew a raspberry. "Not for years."

  "When was the last time you spoke?"

  She gave him a sharp look. "What's he done?"

  He didn't respond.

  Dee rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Five years ago? Could be more."

  "Did you see him in person?"

  "Yeah. He'd been trying to buy that house off me."

  "The one he grew up in?"

  She nodded. The man called out the next number. "Why didn't you sell it to him?"

  "Churlish, I s'pose." She flashed a sly grin and he caught a glimpse of a younger, more playful Dee, one who reminded him a little of Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield. Dee checked her card again, this time whispering, "Yes!" She placed a little wood pellet right in the middle of the square, like a careful model-maker placing a tiny Sköll Thorgest in the ring. "I really want that ham."

  "Could you describe John for me?" he asked.

  "Stop jackin' me around, Detective. What's he done?"

  Again, he gave her a little shrug and pressed his lips together. "He's a person of interest, as they say."

  She dragged her top lip through her teeth and fixed her eyes on something in the distance.

  "I need your help, Ms. Albert."

  "Dee," she said, like a scary muppet going through the alphabet on Sesame Street.

  "Tell me what he looked like the last time you saw him, Dee. Please."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Didn't you two used to be friends?"