by M. Z. Kelly
The ME, who looked like he was around sixty, mopped his bald head with a handkerchief. “Your victim is probably in her mid-twenties. Ligature marks on the neck, no other obvious external injuries. She probably died quickly.”
Becker laughed and looked at his partner. “I guess that’s as close to good news as you get in this business.”
“Did you find any identification on the body?” the ME asked.
Collins answered. “Nothing. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find her prints in the system.”
Dr. Charlie went on for a couple minutes, discussing liver temperature and telling us that the victim had probably been dead only a few hours.
When he was gone, Collins looked at his younger partner. “Looks like we’ve got a big bunch of nothing.”
“Unless we get prints, this is going nowhere,” Becker agreed.
The detectives apparently realized Max and I were still standing there, and turned their attention back to us.
“Nice work,” Collins said. “Thanks to you two, our perp is in the wind, and we’ve got a Jane Doe.” His watery eyes bore into us. “I heard you two are in Blue.”
I saw that Max was close to a meltdown, so I answered. “Anything else you need before we call it a night?”
Becker looked at his partner and answered. “I think they’ve done enough damage.”
Collins didn’t say anything, instead sneering at us before they walked away.
“I’m beginning to think everyone thinks we’re to blame for what happened,” I said, glancing at Max after they were gone.
I saw my partner’s head slumping forward, her big body convulsing. Max sometimes got psychic vibrations, and her body language was familiar to me. I could tell she was having some kind of reaction to our surroundings.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, grabbing hold of her shoulders. I saw that her dark eyes were rolling back in her head. I tightened my grip. “Max, talk to me.”
It took my big partner a couple minutes to regain her bearings and respond. “It’s bad,” she finally said.
“Bad? What exactly does that mean?”
Max drew in a breath and blinked several times, finally focusing on me. “The guy that did this to the girl, he’s...”
Her gaze moved off, and she didn’t go on. “He’s what?”
My partner released a heavy breath. “He’s not finished. He’s gonna kill again.”
THREE
Max and I got home to our cozy catacombs just after eight in the morning. Our underground apartment, the one-time caretaker’s quarters for the cemetery, was located down a passageway adjacent to Balfour Memorial Chapel, where services for the dearly departed were held. Our residence consisted of three bedrooms, a living room with an attached kitchen, and a bank of freezers. The freezers contained a couple dozen unclaimed bodies awaiting burial in the potter’s field section of the cemetery when the frozen ground thawed enough to permit their interment.
I went straight to bed, sleeping until mid-afternoon when Amy called, waking me from a sound sleep. “Mads, I need your help right away.”
I sat up in bed, trying to get my bearings. “What’s going on?”
“Remember Christina Blaze, that TV reporter who hired me because she was being stalked?”
“Yeah, the Chewie,” I said, remembering having seen the reporter do a segment about kids at risk on the news a few nights earlier with Amy. Since our college days, Amy and I had used the Star Wars character’s nickname for any girl that made us jealous. Christina Blaze had perfect hair, skin, and a body to die for that instantly shot our jealousy meters off the charts.
Amy went on. “I got a call from her mother. When Christina didn’t answer her phone, she went by her apartment and found it had been tossed. She thinks her daughter has been kidnapped.”
“Why don’t you call the police?”
Amy made a familiar hissing sound that eventually morphed into the word “Geeze.” Her Jersey roots kicked in as she added, “In case you haven’t noticed, I am tawking to the fuwking police. Her mother doesn’t want this gettin’ out until we’re sure she’s been taken.”
“I’m not sure how I can help.”
“You got police contacts that I don’t. I was thinking maybe you can run some record checks and make some off-the-record inquiries about the reporter.”
It was useless to argue with her. “Give me the address, and I’ll meet you there.”
I put the address in my phone, realizing the reporter lived in the Heights, about a half hour away.
I was about to end the call when Amy said, “This case better not go off the rails. We gotta find her, or I lose a big payday.”
***
As it turned out, Max woke up shortly after I did and agreed to go with me to meet Amy at the reporter’s apartment.
“What do you know about this guy who was stalking...?” Max glanced at me as she drove. “...I forget the reporter’s name.”
“Christina Blaze, but Amy and I call her Chewie.” I took a moment and explained the nickname. “As for the guy stalking her, Amy didn’t explain.”
“I seen Chewie, as you call her, a few times on the news. If I was a guy, I might stalk her myself.”
“Yeah, she makes Amy and me want to upchuck our Cheerios.”
Max chuckled. “Women like her oughta be sent to an outpost, maybe like the Valley of the Moon.”
“Speaking of that, I wonder what Corker has in mind for us when we get to work Monday morning.”
“Don’t know, but I’m thinking we need to look into the dead girl’s case on our own.”
I met her dark eyes for an instant. “You don’t think Becker or Collins are going to work the case?”
“Unless the perp walks into their office and surrenders, I got a feeling our victim could end up in our bank of freezers, awaiting burial.”
I sighed. “Maybe we can talk to Amy about helping us out, since it looks like we’re going to be working the Chewie case for her.”
She again chuckled over the name we’d chosen for the reporter. “Let’s just hope Chewie wasn’t taken by Darth Vader.”
We met up with Amy on the street in front of Christina Blaze’s apartment. An icy wind was blowing, and it was threatening to rain as we made our way down the sidewalk to the brownstone where the reporter lived.
“Christina’s mama’s gonna meet us at the flat and let us inside,” Amy said, brushing her red hair out of her eyes as we walked up the street. “And, just so you know, she’s ‘bout to lose it.”
“I’d do the same, if it was my kid,” Max said.
“Yeah, but Effie, that’s her name...” Amy stopped at the steps leading to the apartment. “You’ll just to have to see for yourself.”
As it turned out, Effie Blaze wasn’t just upset about her daughter going missing. She was a hand-wringing, sky-is-falling neurotic, who paced around Christina’s apartment as we looked through it for clues to her disappearance.
“Christina’s probably buried somewhere in the woods,” Blaze said, finally collapsing into a chair. She was a statuesque woman in her forties, with long brown hair, who shared her daughter’s even features and flawless skin. She broke into tears. “Oh, God, I can’t believe this is happening.”
“You need to keep it together for your daughter’s sake,” Amy said. “Tell us what you know about this guy Christina thought was stalking her.”
“All I know is that Christina said she was getting some strange emails that made threats about exposing the truth about her.”
“What kind of truth?” I asked.
Effie Blaze didn’t look at me, instead slumping forward and covering her face with her hands. “My daughter swore me to silence. I can’t tell you.”
Amy went over to her, pulling Blaze’s hands away from her face and fixing her eyes on her. “Listen to me. If you want us to find your daughter, you’ve got to level with us. Tell us what was going on.”
Blaze sighed, then stood and walked over to the window. She stared at the stree
t for a long moment, then said, “I don’t know exactly.”
Amy went over and tugged on Blaze’s arm, getting her attention. “Not good enough. Start talking.”
Blaze took a long time before answering, making me wonder if she was telling the truth. “Christina said something happened with a boy when she was in college. She thought the person stalking her was going to expose what happened if she didn’t cooperate.”
Amy’s pretty features hardened, as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “Cooperate in what way?”
“My daughter was being blackmailed. She said a man wanted a half-million dollars to keep quiet.”
FOUR
“This stalker,” Max said to Effie Blaze. “Are you sure it was a man and not a woman?”
Blaze’s pretty features tightened. “I just assumed it was a man. Do you think it might be a woman?”
Max didn’t answer, so I asked, “The boy who was in college, do you know what happened to him?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t the slightest idea. All I know is it must have been bad.”
“How was your daughter involved in what happened to him?”
“Christina wouldn’t say, other than telling me if word ever got out, it would ruin her career.”
I fixed my eyes on her. “Are you sure you’re telling us everything you know?”
“Yes. I swear I don’t know anything more.”
“Do you have any idea where Christina kept her phone?” Amy said as she removed a cushion from the sofa, searching for it.
“She always had it with her. Do you think someone might have taken it?”
Amy looked at Max and me. “Let’s toss this joint again, see if we can find it.”
We spent the next hour going through the flat, looking under the bed and sofa, but finding nothing.
“Maybe she left her phone at work,” I suggested, once we’d given up finding it.
Amy looked at Blaze. “Do you have access to your daughter’s office at the TV studio?”
She shook her head, then her eyes brightened. “You might ask Gail. I know she sometimes went by the newsroom to have lunch with Christina.”
“Who?”
“My daughter’s best friend.” She pulled out her phone. “I think I have her number.”
After getting the contact information, Amy tried getting ahold of Gail—last name Walsh—several times, but the calls went to voice mail. After going back over everything Effie Blaze had told us, looking for any inconsistencies in her story, Amy told her that she would be in touch, and we all headed for home.
As we were walking through the passageway to our apartment, we ran into the mortician for Funk’s Fields. Thorndike—first name Lola (apparently a popular name in the old country, as in Transylvania)—was about five feet tall, with dark eyes, and coal black hair that formed a widow’s peak low on his forehead. He reminded me of a small vampire, or maybe a troll who lived under a bridge somewhere.
“Don’t be forgetting we have a service tomorrow afternoon,” Thorndike said in his heavy Eastern European accent, after stopping in the corridor. Having recently spent so much time around his niece, his Old World accent seemed to thicken each time we spoke. “I think there could be trouble, so I wanting you all to be there.”
“What kind of trouble?” Amy asked.
“All I know is the family has some history of violence.” He waddled away, mumbling something about crazy music. Nothing he’d said made any sense.
“What the hell was that all about?” I asked Amy and Max as we moved on.
Amy shrugged. “Who knows? Let’s just hope the little creepazoid has the right body in the box this time.”
Thorndike had a prior for putting the wrong body in the coffin, something that had almost caused a riot amongst the crowd of mourners at a recent service.
When we got to our apartment, Max got a bottle of wine from the fridge and brought over glasses as we all settled in on the sofa. She told Amy what was on her mind. “I got me a feeling your client has some bad history that’s finally caught up with her.”
“What do you suppose happened with the boy in college that her mother told us about?” I asked Amy.
“Don’t know, but I’m going to try and track down her best friend tomorrow. Maybe she knows something.”
“What exactly did Chewie say when she hired you?”
“Not much. We just talked on the phone and she said something vague about being stalked, but didn’t go into details. We were planning to meet, but she went missing.” Her eyes held on me. “I was thinking maybe you want to tag along when I talk to Walsh tomorrow, then we can go shopping.” She looked at Max. “I’d invite you, but I know you got plans with Sonny.”
Max smiled. “If things go as I hope, I won’t be home tomorrow night.”
“Fuwk,” Amy said, using her favorite word that revealed her Jersey roots. “I gotta find me a guy before I become a vagicano.”
“A what?” I said.
“It’s when you’re so horny your vagina blows up like fuwking Mt. Vesuvius.”
Max and I both laughed.
Amy went on. “You think my condition is funny, huh?” She focused on me. “At least you got Sam.”
“Sam and I are...we’re just casual, at this point.”
“At this point,” Amy said, mocking me. “You two are gonna bust the smush one of these days, while I’m wearing out my dildo and knittin’ sweaters.”
Amy went on for a couple minutes, bemoaning her fate, before changing the subject. “So, what’s the latest with finding your mother, or, I guess I should say, Donna Wallace?”
My mother had abandoned me when I was twelve, leaving me with my aunt and uncle to raise, ostensibly so that she could enter a drug rehab program. I’d recently learned that she became involved with a drug user named Mark Banuelos after leaving her program, and began living under the alias Donna Wallace.
Banuelos ended up dead at the hands of William Jeffers, a major drug supplier he’d ripped off. Jeffers subsequently killed Banuelos, his family, and anyone he was close to, along with him being a suspect in some serial killings that began in North Carolina. I’d learned that my mother might have been involved with Jeffers, helping him find his victims. My Mom, as Donna Wallace, had been living with an elderly woman in upstate New York who had ended up murdered, and her bank accounts emptied. I wasn’t positive that Mom had been involved, but I was determined to eventually learn the truth, even if that would make me the daughter of a serial killer.
“Sam and I are supposed to have dinner Sunday night,” I told Amy. “He was planning to do some more research on Donna Wallace’s background, so I’m hoping he has something new to tell me.”
“Dinner, huh?” Amy looked at Max. “Betcha it turns into a smuch-fest. I gotta find me a guy.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t give up on Jake,” Max said, referring to a plumber Amy had recently dated.
Amy broke into a fit of laughter. “Mads and me caught him with his sister.” She made quotation marks with her hands when she said “sister”. “And, unless he’s one sick mofo and is boffing his sibling, he’s a cheatin’ liar.” She went on, again telling us that she was desperate to find a man, before Max and I changed the subject and told her about our night in the Valley of the Moon.
“I got me some real bad vibes when we was in the landfill,” Max said, after we’d explained what happened. “I think whoever buried the girl has killed before.”
“And you got no idea who the girl is?” Amy asked, pouring herself a second glass of wine.
“The only clue we have is this,” I said, showing her the muddy book of matches that I’d put in a plastic bag to preserve any evidence.
“Herman’s Lounge,” Amy said. “I heard of that place. It’s a hookah joint.”
I knew, from her past use of the term, she meant it was a bar where prostitutes picked up johns. “You sure about this?”
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout thongs, not bongs. It’s on the
Lower East Side. The girls work the flats and hotels that are nearby.”
Max looked at me. “I think maybe we could use Amy’s help on this.”
“You guys gonna work this off the books?” Amy asked.
Max and I exchanged glances. I said, “The body didn’t have any ID on it, and, if she was a working girl, the case is probably already circling the drain.”
Amy clinked glasses with Max and me. “I’ll scratch yours, if you scratch mine.” She held up her glass. “And, just so I’m clear, I haven’t switched sides. I’m talking about Christina Blaze and your working girl. This is a job for the women’s secret crime-fighting club.”
FIVE
The women’s secret crime-fighting club was a clandestine, informal arrangement that Amy, Max, and I had formed. We agreed to help Amy on her cases, when needed, and she assisted us, working behind the scenes to solve crimes that Max and I knew would otherwise go unsolved. We’d had some success on a couple past cases, but had to make sure our activities remained confidential, so that Max and I wouldn’t get into trouble with the department. As we knocked on Gail Walsh’s door the next afternoon, and I thought about my new lieutenant, that seemed even more important.
“Just so you know, I’m going to hang back and keep quiet,” I told Amy, as we heard movement inside the apartment.
“I heard you’re working for Corker the Porker again, so I understand.”
The door swung open, and we were greeted by a pretty young woman. “You must be that private investigator that called me last night.”
Amy nodded. “I’m Amy Ross. This is my friend, Madison. Can we come in?”
After we were let inside the small apartment and took seats at a table adjacent to her kitchen, Gail Walsh explained why she hadn’t returned Amy’s calls. “My dad had a heart attack, so I was preoccupied with everything that was happening yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” Amy said. “Is he okay?”
Christina Blaze’s best friend nodded. “They’re running some tests, but I think so.” After Walsh explained about being close to her father, she asked about Christina. “Your message yesterday said something about trying to find Christina. What’s going on?”
