Fatal Demand: A Jess Kimball Thriller

by Diane Capri

  Jess arched her eyebrows. “I didn’t know that.”

  “By law, every two years the families can place a previously buried loved one into a special body bag, destroy the coffin, and add another member to the vault.” He shrugged. “We can’t bury most people underground here because the water table is too high and we don’t have enough above-ground burial space in all of New Orleans. We’ve had to make adjustments.”

  The information creeped Jess out, though. She shivered in the bright sunshine. “So what made this particular body suspicious, then?”

  “A teenager died unexpectedly over the weekend in a car wreck. When they were preparing for the funeral, the unidentified body was found inside the vault. No coffin. No body bag. The family who owns this crypt hadn’t buried anyone here for about ten years and no one in the family recognized him. Although the guy had been in there a while and wasn’t, well let’s say pleasant to look at.”

  “Were you the first officer on the scene here when they found the body?”

  “No. Never been here before. Never saw the body.” He shook his head and shrugged again. “Came on about thirty minutes ago.”

  “Can I look inside? Take a few photos?”

  “Like I said, my orders are to show you whatever you want to see. If you can look at it, you can photograph it, I guess. I’d ask you to be respectful of the family, though. They’ve just lost a boy and they can’t bury him properly until this mess is cleared up. The family is pretty upset.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  Galet stepped aside and opened the heavy door to the crypt. Jess snapped a few photos before she looked inside. There were no lights or illumination of any kind. She turned her phone on for the soft blue backlight and used it to look around. The square room was plain, cool, and dry. Not remarkable in any way except that it held coffins stacked on either side.

  “Where was the body found?”

  “On the floor. Dead center.” But for the circumstances, Jess would have groaned at his exceedingly bad pun.

  The floor of the crypt was also granite. She held her phone to illuminate the center of the floor, but didn’t see anything indicating a body had been decomposing there yesterday.

  “Any trace evidence found in here?”

  Galet shrugged. “This isn’t even my case.”

  Jess stepped back out into the sunlight, which felt warm and inviting all of a sudden. Galet closed the heavy door and they walked through the iron gates and away from the crypt.

  “If I think of anything else, can I call you?” Jess reached out to shake hands again. This time, she gave him her card.

  “I don’t know what more I can possibly tell you, but sure.” He reached into his pocket and handed over one of his. “You’d be better off talking to the detective assigned to the case. Or ask Morris. I’m sure he can find out, if he doesn’t know already.”

  “What about the Zimmer family?”

  Galet cocked his head and peered as if he didn’t understand. “I mean, it’s likely the dead man was connected to them in some way. Otherwise, how would anyone have managed to get a body inside there?”

  Galet shrugged.

  Indeed. Another question for Morris. Jess added it to her mental list.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kowalski had lived in a rented condo located in the historic Garden District of New Orleans. Jess gave her driver Kowalski’s address. The wide lawns and lush gardens of what had once been plantations were both breathtaking and a little creepy.

  The limo pulled to a stop in front of 1877 Coliseum. Set back from the street on a deep green lawn was a Greek Italianate building that had been converted from a single home to eight apartments and then to four condos, according to the quick web search Jess did on her phone. Kowalski’s condo was the one on the top right.

  Tall bushes on the inside and an ornate iron fence on the street side lined the lot and kept the riff-raff out. Jess walked along the sidewalk to the front gate, which was not locked. The hinges of the heavy iron gate squealed when she pushed it wide enough to slip through and again when she closed it.

  Ten yards along a straight paved path from the sidewalk, Jess ran up the steps to the front door. On one side of the heavy wood entrance was a row of four engraved brass plates, each with its own button.

  Number three sported Kowalski’s name, which made sense if the home had been divided into equal quarters. Jess pressed the button twice and waited. After a few moments of nothing happening, she pressed the button twice more. Same result.

  Okay. Maybe Kowalski had lived alone. Maybe his neighbors were working. Coming here was a long shot. She’d had good luck interviewing neighbors in the past, but Kowalski probably wasn’t the type to confide in friends.

  Morris had supplied an office address. She’d try that next. Employees and co-workers should have more information about him anyway.

  She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the heavy door open behind her. She turned. A man wearing nothing but a towel stood half hidden in the shadows.

  “Sorry. I was in the shower. I was expecting someone else.” He was maybe thirty. Tall. Fit. He tousled long dark hair with the second towel in his left hand. “Can I help you?”

  Jess tromped up the steps again. “I’m looking for Aleksy Kowalski.”

  “You found him.”

  So Kowalski had a son. That info wasn’t in Morris’s file. Jess extended her hand. “I’m Jessica Kimball. Taboo Magazine.”

  “Seriously?” He raked his hands through his hair to tame it a bit.

  His naked chest was well-muscled, tanned, and totally hairless. Probably a wax job, judging from all the curly hair on his arms and legs. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

  “Yep.” Jess fished out one of her business cards and held it out. He retrieved the card and examined it for a moment. “No offense, but the Aleksy Kowalski I’m looking for is maybe late forties. Either you’re remarkably youthful for your age, or I have the wrong man.”

  “You probably want my uncle. Dad’s brother.” He looked at Jess and flipped her business card across his fingers, which sounded like a playing card thwapping the spokes of a kid’s bicycle. “Before you ask, I don’t know where my uncle is. He lives here with me, but I haven’t seen him in a few months, actually. He travels a lot on business.”

  “What kind of business is he in?”

  “International banking and investments. Why? Taboo can’t be interested in something boring like that?”

  He seemed to be flexing his abs or something. He made no move to brush her off. “What about your Dad? Is he around?”

  “Sorry. Dad lives in New York.”

  “Mrs. Kowalski, then?”

  He grinned. “You mean my aunt, not my mom, right?”

  At this point, Jess would have accepted either, but she nodded to avoid suspicion.

  “Well, Aunt Katia passed away a few years ago. Breast cancer. And before you ask, they didn’t have any kids.”

  “I see. And your mother?”

  He cocked his head. His eyes narrowed. Maybe she’d gone a bridge too far with that question. Men usually protected their mothers forever, in Jess’s experience. His tone was a little frosty. “In New York. Where she lives. Anything else?”

  Jess flailed around trying to think of something legitimate to prolong the conversation and maybe get a lead to follow. “Uh, anybody else been here looking for your uncle?”

  “Like who?”

  She shrugged. “Anyone at all.”

  “Why would anybody be looking for him?”

  This was going nowhere and she was wasting time. “You’re right. Well, you have my card. When he gets back, please ask your uncle to call me. Sorry to bother you.”

  She pivoted and made it halfway down the steps again before he said, “I won’t be able to do that.”

  She looked up at him from the fourth step. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s not coming back. His job sent him to China. Probably be gone for a five-year
stint, he said.”

  “China?”

  “American companies are doing a lot of business over there these days.” Aleksy smirked. His voice dripped condescension. “Or hadn’t you heard?”

  Jess nodded slowly. She’d been holding her phone behind her back. She pressed the button to turn it on and used the thumbprint recognition to gain access to the camera. “How about you and your dad, Mr. Kowalski? Do you three have a family business going here?”

  Before he answered, in one smooth motion, she pulled the phone around, lifted it, and snapped a few photo bursts of the very much alive Aleksy Kowalski. Photos were always better than physical descriptions, should he turn out to be something other than what he claimed.

  “I can’t imagine how my business can possibly concern you,” he said before he stepped back into the shadows and closed the heavy door with a sturdy thud.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Orlando, Florida

  May 10

  The flight across the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans was easy. By the time the 737 landed smoothly in Orlando, Jess was only halfway through Morris’s files. She’d go over every bit and byte of these files tonight. For sure.

  The reports showed Warga, Zmich, and Supko had died within a few days of each other, two months earlier. Kowalski’s body was decomposed at a level suggesting he’d died at the same time.

  The very same time Blazek was, in his own special way, getting himself into police protection. He knew what was going down, and there was blood on his hands just as surely as if he’d poisoned the other members of the gang himself.

  She furrowed her brow and tapped her fingernail against her eye tooth. If someone was cleaning house, Grantly was either not on the list, or he was the one doing the cleaning.

  And if the murderer wasn’t Grantly, they had a good reason for keeping him alive. Perhaps his rank in whatever sick organization they belonged to?

  She pulled out the address Morris had given her. It was clearly a business address, Grantly’s real estate firm.

  She stuffed the address back into her bag, along with her laptop, and waited in line to exit the plane. Once off the jet bridge, she called Morris.

  “Morris here.”

  “Warga, Zmich, and Supko were broke when they were killed, right?” She walked around a woman with a baby in a stroller. No moving sidewalks anywhere in sight.

  “Pretty much penniless. There might have been some life insurance.”

  “Kowalski was likely broke, too. You’re looking into that?”

  “Yeah. Although that condo the nephew is living in has a market value in the seven-figure range, according to tax records.”

  She shifted the heavy laptop case to her left shoulder, waiting for the tram to take her to the main terminal. “That’s why Grantly’s still alive. He’s got money left, and they’re going to extract it from him first.”

  Morris paused. “Could be.”

  “It has to be. That’s what these people want. Money.”

  “Maybe. Easier to hold a gun to their heads to get the money, though.”

  Jess clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Because before they were running a team of scammers. Each one generating revenue from the people they brought into the operation. Now they’re squeezing the last they can from the whole tree.”

  The tram pulled into the station and the doors slid open on both sides. Passengers exited on the north side and Jess entered on the opposite.

  “Sorry. What?” She pressed her palm over her ear to hear Morris’s voice over the loudspeakers telling passengers to hold onto the handrails firmly in two languages.

  “Because they’re closing it down.”

  “Yeah. Closing up shop. Disposing of the…” she glanced around at the passengers jammed into the tram and pressing against her on all sides, “…problems.”

  “I don’t think so.” Morris paused. “They’re just moving on. Starting on a new batch of victims. Sucking more people into their web.”

  “I have to talk to Grantly. Work my way into his confidence. He has to have been lying when he talked to you. We have to find something.”

  Morris laughed. “Good plan.”

  “Yeah, well. Shoe leather. No way around it, is there?”

  “I’m flexible. Just find me something I can take to a judge and we’re back in business.”

  “Keep that judge on speed dial. And meanwhile, can you check out the last name Zimmer?”

  “I guess I can. Why?”

  “Candace Supko told me her husband invested in bad art. She said he always managed to sell the paintings at a profit to private collectors.”

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “Well, she said the art was bad, as in worthless. And she had one painting on the wall of her mobile home. It was signed by Zimmer. The same name that’s on the tomb where they found Kowalski’s body.”

  “I see. I’ll check it out.” She could hear the keys clicking on a keyboard. Morris was taking notes. “Anything else?”

  “Not yet. I’ll call you later.”

  She hung up, and felt the weight of her foolish boast as she followed the crowds to baggage claim. The bags were already on the carousel by the time she got there. She preferred to travel with only a carry-on but her concealed carry permit didn’t allow the Glock in the cabin.

  An hour later, she’d collected her luggage and found her rental, a small foreign SUV. She stowed her bags in the very back, and placed her Glock under the front seat where she could easily reach it.

  It was dark in Orlando. She hated to conduct recon while driving at night in unfamiliar surroundings. It was inefficient, for one thing, too easy to miss the important things, and it was too easy to end up in the wrong part of town.

  She entered Grantly’s Winter Park address into the GPS on her phone, adjusted the mirrors and steering wheel, and cruised out of the garage.

  Her destination was fourteen miles northwest of the Orlando airport. She could be there in less than thirty minutes. Mandy had booked a chain hotel nearby and texted the confirmation. So far, so good. She’d had a long and exhausting day. A hot bath and a comfortable bed sounded like a heavenly combination.

  She drove through several residential areas that ran the gamut from stately historic homes to recently constructed condominium towers. She had no home address for Grantly, which was fine. Grantly could wait until tomorrow. She needed to be on the top of her game for the interview, not on the backend of a long day dealing with scum like Blazek.

  She arrived in Winter Park, and turned onto the main street, Park Avenue. The office of Grantly & Son was on the left hand side. She slowed to a crawl. Under the streetlights, the paint had an odd but rich glow.

  Pictures and property details jostled for position in the plate glass window. Behind the photos inside the building looked to be desks. Not the cubicles of a modern office, but large wood objects with carved legs, banker’s lamps, and blotters. The opening hours were painted on the door: Grantly & Son would be open for business at 7:00 a.m.

  She eased on down the street. The shops along Park Avenue were closed for the night, but the old storefronts looked prosperous. Farther down Central, the park that gave the area its name was deserted, although the fountain splashed water as if enthralled admirers were watching.

  If Peter hadn’t been taken, it was the sort of place she would have liked to live. Somewhere that had charm. A little uniqueness, a little independent spirit. Local shops and local people. Not deep in the city, but not far out in the faceless suburbs. She sighed. One day she would find him. One day she would call a place like Winter Park, home. They both would. Her eyes swam with glassy tears but she blinked them back and turned toward her hotel. Crying over Peter wouldn’t help. She knew that much for sure.

  By the time she checked in, and took a quick shower, she was too exhausted to think.

  Tomorrow she would be ready for Grantly. She would be bright, and primped, and full of smiles. She would laugh at every joke he cr
acked. She would smile knowingly at every shared experience. She would bring the lure of fame to his doorstep…and she would nail the bastard.

  Whatever his involvement. Whatever his part in the grand scheme. Whatever he thought he was going to get away with. She would find something. Something to stop him, stop the others, stop Blazek. Especially Blazek.

  When she was done, she would take a couple of days off. She needed it. She would shove all and everything to the back of her mind, and she would eat, drink, and sleep like an angel. She sighed, especially at the sleep part.

  Jess was no stranger to sleep deprivation. When she was this tired, memories of the night her son was kidnapped felt strong and fresh. As she sat on the edge of her bed, and dialed her tip lines to check for news of Peter, unwelcome emotions from ten years ago flooded over her.

  The crappy apartment. Pregnant at sixteen, trying to get through high school and on to college. She’d wanted a good life for Peter and she’d known she needed an education to make everything she wanted for him to become reality.

  She closed her eyes, hung her head, and let the feelings flood back. She’d been exhausted that night, too. Working as a waitress at a low-rent diner. Peter was a colicky baby. He cried all the time and rarely slept. Her exhaustion then was total, despair of the spirit, really.

  When Peter had finally managed to nap that long ago night, she’d dashed to grab the laundry from the basement.

  She’d only left him for the briefest of moments. When she ran back to the apartment, he was gone.

  Peter had never been found, although finding him remained Jess’s personal obsession to this day. At first, she’d believed the authorities who told her they’d find Peter. She’d left the job to the experts. Until she’d finished school and finally realized that they’d given up.

  Oh, they claimed they were still working on Peter’s case. But the resources weren’t there. They had moved on. She didn’t blame them, really. But she couldn’t do the same.