by Chris Culver
“Can someone tell me what’s going on now?” I asked.
Olivia looked as if she were going to say something, but Bowers stepped in before she could. The two paramedics leaning against the ambulance perked up.
“Here’s the deal,” said Bowers. “Robbie Cutting died this morning, and he took responsibility for your niece’s death in his suicide note. He said he drugged her so she’d sleep with him. I’m sorry for your family’s loss, but this is a satisfactory outcome as far as I’m concerned. I’m closing the investigation.”
I nodded, allowing the information to ruminate inside my head.
“Robbie and Rachel had been dating for two years,” I said. “She’s a good kid, but I don’t think he’d need drugs to have sex with her.”
Bowers shrugged.
“No matter how he seemed, Robbie admitted drugging her,” said Bowers. “She’s a Muslim, and correct me if I’m wrong, but that means she can’t have sex until she’s married. Robbie apparently got tired of waiting.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Islam does say sex is for marriage, but it also says pigs are unclean and I can’t eat them. That doesn’t stop me from loving bacon, Lieutenant,” I said. “Rachel was with him for years. They’re teenagers; they don’t change. There’s a reason people in my culture get married young.”
Bowers rolled his eyes, his face growing redder the longer he spoke.
“The kid’s note says he slipped her drugs, and her preliminary toxicology report says there was enough cocaine in her system to kill a horse. Case closed, Detective.”
I took a step back and put my hands up defensively.
“I don’t doubt what you’re saying, Lieutenant,” I said. “But I still think it’s a little early to close this. You didn’t even find drugs at the scene.”
Bowers shifted and shook his head.
“You’re defending the guy who killed your niece. You do realize how absurd that is, don’t you?”
“I’m not defending anybody. There are things to investigate here. If Robbie drugged her, why didn’t you find anything at the scene?”
Bowers glanced to Olivia.
“You want to take that one?” he asked.
My old partner stepped forward. She glanced at Bowers before turning towards me.
“We’re guessing that the drugs were in that vial of liquid we found.”
“You’re guessing?” I asked, my eyebrows raised.
Olivia cleared her throat.
“It’s been misplaced,” she said, glancing at Bowers. “We picked up three homicides that night. It was probably filed with the wrong case. It’ll turn up.”
“That’s an optimistic assessment,” said Bowers, glaring at my old partner. He turned towards me. “You don’t work for me, so I’ll make this quick. I don’t know what kind of scam you’re running, but my department does not misplace evidence. If I find you had any part in making that vial disappear, I’ll go for your badge. Is that clear?”
I could feel my temper bubbling to the surface.
“I don’t know what sort of information you’ve got, but my only connection to this case is my niece. I haven’t touched a thing.”
Bowers cocked his head to the right.
“Make sure you keep it that way, Detective,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do.”
Bowers pushed past me and walked toward one of the awaiting police cruisers. When his shoulder hit mine, it felt as if I had run into a brick wall. I rocked back on my heels and clenched my jaw but said nothing. The paramedics near the ambulance went back to loitering and pretending not to notice us.
“What’s that all about?” I asked as Bowers’ cruiser backed out of its spot.
“The Lieutenant’s been trying to get me transferred since he took over homicide,” said Olivia, looking up and squinting in the afternoon sun. “He doesn’t like women, and I think he sees this as another chance to get rid of one.”
“And he’s willing to blow an investigation to do that?”
Olivia shrugged.
“If it looks like my fault, yeah.”
I shook my head.
“Okay, fill me in for a moment so I can understand. What happened to Robbie Cutting?”
Olivia looked away from me.
“From what I could tell, Bowers was right. He killed himself. He jammed a scrap of hardwood flooring through his bed so it would stand up, and then he jumped on it.”
“Suicide by self–impalement? That’s ridiculous.”
She shrugged.
“It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what it looks like,” she said. “Robbie left a note. It said that he was a vampire and the only way to kill himself was by stabbing him through the heart.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose, hoping to stave off an impending headache.
“The note is probative, but not sufficient to close the case. What else do we have?”
Olivia shrugged.
“Lieutenant Bowers thinks it’s enough. He’s an administrator. His job is to close cases. Until the Coroner’s office says Robbie’s death is a criminal homicide, it’s going nowhere.”
What she didn’t need to say is that by the time the Coroner’s office made that ruling, every trace of physical evidence would be gone, memories would have started fading and stories would be solidified. I ran my fingers through my hair.
“Did Robbie seem suicidal to you when we talked to him the other night?” I asked.
Olivia shook her head no.
“I don’t think so, but I'm not qualified to make that judgment,” she said. “And neither are you.”
I leaned back on my heels and rubbed my chin.
“There’s more going on here than we know,” I said. “Someone I love is dead, we’re missing evidence, and everyone connected to the case is lying their asses off to us. No matter how much of a bureaucrat Bowers is, he can’t ignore this.”
“He can, and he did,” said Olivia. “We don’t have unlimited resources. Bowers thinks he’s making the right call.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
Olivia squinted at me and shook her head. She closed her eyes before speaking.
“I think it’s time to back off unless something else shows up. I’m not going to risk my job by going behind my Lieutenant’s back.”
“He’s not my Lieutenant,” I said.
Olivia nodded.
“He’s not, but he’ll burn you if you get in his way. Back dooring him on this case is not a good idea.”
I slipped my hand to the back of my neck. Being a detective was more than a job for me. It was a calling deeply rooted in my identity. I may not have been a very good Muslim, but my religion called me to seek and foster justice. It’s a divine edict as stringent as any command in any faith. Nobody gets a pass, least of all somebody who hurt my niece.
“Why would Bowers want this case closed?” I asked.
Olivia shrugged.
“Aside from solving the manpower shortage in our department?”
“If the problem was manpower, he could graft detectives from other departments,” I said. “We’ve got two former homicide guys in our bullpen alone. He’s got something else going on.”
“You’re being paranoid, Ash,” said Olivia.
“I’m paid to be paranoid,” I said. “I’ll keep you out of it, but I’m not done with this case.”
Olivia sighed.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.
“I’ll do my best.”
Chapter 5
It was mid–afternoon when the patrolman dropped me off at my house. I had missed noon prayers, but I wasn’t in the mood to pray. I grabbed the bottle of bourbon from my car’s glove compartment and poured the remaining three fingers into a juice glass in the kitchen. I leaned against the counter, my mind racing.
Bowers may have been an administrator, but he had spent most of his life as an investigator. There were too many open questions and to
o many inconsistencies in the story to close Robbie’s death investigation. He would have known that. I didn’t know who was involved or what the goal was, but he was running a play on somebody.
I downed the drink quickly and shoved the bottle into my trash can, burying it beneath rubbish. I felt better after that, and I allowed my mind to wander. Robbie had purchased the vial of blood at a club in Plainfield. If no one else was going to look at it, I needed to. I Googled the address on my computer and was in my car shortly after that.
I drove for about forty–five minutes. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do after a drink, but I arrived safely anyway. The nightclub was called ‘The Abbey,’ but I didn’t know if that was a clever reference to Carfax Abbey, one of the properties Count Dracula bought in Bram Stoker’s famous book, or to the fact that the club was located in a converted country church that could have been a monastery.
I parked in an expansive gravel lot beside the building and stepped out. The church overlooked a valley planted with soybeans that undulated in the wind like green waves, and the air smelled fresh and sweet. There were woods behind the building. The club was the only commercial enterprise in sight.
I walked to the steps in front of the building. Like many old churches in central Indiana, it was covered in pitted, grayish–green limestone, a plentiful resource quarried from the nearby hills. It was a shame the former congregation had sold the place. If the cross on top of the steeple hadn’t been inverted, they could have made a fortune holding weddings.
The front door was propped open, and I caught a whiff of bleach as I walked towards it. There were at least two people inside, and they both spoke the rapid Spanish of native speakers. With any luck, there’d be a manager on duty supervising them who could tell me a bit more about the club.
I pounded on the door to let the staff know I was there and walked into what would have been the church’s narthex. It looked like the waiting room of a bordello. A long, purple sash ran the length of the ceiling, and purple velvet couches lined the walls. Despite the garish decorations, I could still see remnants of the church’s previous tenants. Someone had carved a cross into the limestone above the front door and a stained–glass window filtered the sunlight into a deep crimson.
The hardwood floor groaned as I walked, and the Spanish chattering ceased.
“Hello?” I called. I pushed aside a pair of velvet drapes that demarcated the narthex from the sanctuary and stepped deeper into the club. The Abbey’s main room was maybe ten–thousand square feet and had an expansive dance floor, raised stage for a band, and a bar on the left side. A pair of Hispanic women mopped while a middle–aged guy with black hair scurried behind the bar. I waved at the cleaning staff but neither woman stirred.
“What do you want?”
The barkeep stopped working and leaned against the concrete bar, scowling. He was thin and had an angular face with wavy black hair. He looked like a forty–year–old Mick Jagger if the Rolling Stones hadn’t taken off. I flashed my badge at him, purposefully holding my arm up long enough that Mick would see the firearm inside my jacket.
“Are you the usual bartender here?” I asked, clipping my badge back to my belt.
“Depends on how you define usual.”
I supposed that was literally true. I leaned against the bar while Mick knelt down and grabbed a case of Budlite from beneath. He took a six inch butterfly knife out of his back pocket and sliced into the cardboard like a butcher. I shifted on my feet and eased my hand to my side so my gun was within easy reach if I needed it.
“Like I said, what do you want?” asked Mick, putting his knife back in his pocket. I looked over my shoulder. The two Hispanic women still hadn’t moved.
“Tell them I’m not with INS, would you?” I asked, pointing over my shoulder with my thumb. “They seem a little spooked.”
He nodded and yelled in Spanish. I could have done it myself, but I wanted to see what he’d do. His reaction was mildly comforting, actually. If he was nice enough to his cleaning staff to let them know they weren’t in trouble, maybe we wouldn’t have to end in a shootout.
While he yelled, I pulled out my wallet and thumbed through the pictures inside until I came across one my sister had sent me a year earlier. It was a headshot Rachel’s school had taken for the yearbook. It was a good picture. I took it out and pressed it across the bar toward him.
“Have you seen this girl in here?” I asked.
Mick studied the picture before sliding it back to me.
“Not our type of clientèle.”
“You guys probably do like them a little more lively,” I said, sliding the picture back toward him. “She’s my niece and she’s dead. Does that jog any memory loose?”
Mick grimaced and picked up a pair of beer bottles in each hand before putting them in a cooler behind the bar.
“I’m sorry she’s dead,” he said. “But I wouldn’t serve her if she gave me her passport, driver’s license, and birth certificate. Like I said. She’s not our type of clientèle. We don’t serve kids.”
I took out my cell phone and flipped through its built–in memory until I came across the shot I had taken of Alisha Weinstein earlier that day. My phone’s screen was small, but it was large enough to make out her features. I held it to the bartender.
“How about her?”
Mick took a look and nodded.
“She’s in every now and then,” he said. “Never pays for her own drinks.”
I nodded and slipped the phone back in my pocket.
“Care to reevaluate your statement about serving kids, then?”
Mick stopped what he was doing and leaned against the bar. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“She’s a minor?”
I nodded, and Mick swore under his breath.
“She’s got to have ID to get in,” he said, putting up his hands defensively. “If they get past security, I serve them. I assume they’re twenty–one.”
“I’d say you should beef up security.”
Mick nodded.
“I’m starting to agree with you there,” he said. He rested his elbows on the bar and leaned forward. “You haven’t arrested me yet, so what do you want? Free drinks? A payoff? What?”
“I’m here for information,” I said, pulling out a barstool. I sat down and folded my hands in front of me. “I want to know what sort of place this is and who comes here.”
Mick looked at his cleaning staff for a moment and then reached for a bottle of a green cleaner. He sprayed the bar top around my arms and started wiping in a clockwise motion. The cleaner smelled like pine.
“We’re a club, like every other club in town. Our visitors are usually in their twenties and thirties. Men, women, straight, gay. We don’t discriminate. We get it all and then some.”
It sounded like a rehearsed speech. I smiled but didn’t let it reach my eyes.
“Most nightclubs don’t have inverted crosses on their steeples.”
“Our clients are creative people,” said Mick, shrugging. He reached beneath the bar and came up with two bottles of cheap vodka in each hand. “They don’t like a standard club experience.”
“Your clients pretend to be vampires from what I gather. Creative isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind.”
I thought I saw Mick smile, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. He reached into his back pocket again, withdrew his butterfly knife, and sliced through the plastic spout built into each bottle.
“Our clients come here because they want to be someone different for a night. That’s what we give them. The decorations are theatrics.”
I nodded.
“You have any problems with drugs here?”
Mick put down his knife and rested his elbows against the bar.
“If we see anything suspicious, we call the police. This is a legitimate operation.”
I nodded again, not entirely sure that I believed him.
“You know somebody named Azrael?” I aske
d, remembering Olivia using the name earlier that day.
Mick nodded and shrugged.
“He’s a regular. Uses one of our VIP rooms,” said Mick, indicating a balcony overlooking the room with his chin. At one time, it had probably been overflow seating for Easter Sunday services. “He’s not into drugs.”
“You know that for a fact?”
Mick shrugged.
“Not a fact,” he said. “But I’ve never heard he’s pushing.”
“How hard are you listening?” I asked.
“Fuck you,” said Mick, turning and reaching under the bar. I couldn’t see his hands for a moment. I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. The fabric ripped at the collar, and he stood up straight, his hands in the air. “Easy, easy. Who do you think you are, fucking Wyatt Earp?”
I let go of Mick’s shirt, and he made an elaborate show of straightening his collar and slicking back his hair. His shirt had been stretched so far that I could see a faded black tattoo on his chest. The lines were so crooked and blotchy that I couldn’t see what it was supposed to represent. It was sloppy work, even for a prison tattoo.
“Someone I care about is dead, so I’m not in the mood to put up with shit. Tell me what you know, or I’ll arrest you for serving alcohol to minors. How do you feel about going back to prison?”
Mick adjusted his collar, hiding the tattoo on his neck.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” I said. “Is there any way I can get in touch with Azrael?”
“We don’t keep a roster with our client’s information if that’s what you’re asking,” said Mick.
“How does he pay for his drinks?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Cash.”
I waited for Mick to continue, but he didn’t.
“Who pays for Alicia Weinstein’s drinks?”
“The blond girl?” he asked.
I nodded.
“A lot of men,” he said. “A lot.”
“Are you implying something?” I asked, my eyebrows narrowed.
“Take a look around, Detective,” he said, sweeping his arm across the bar. “This place has a lot of dark corners, a lot of couches, a lot of places to do things unseen. She was with a lot of men.”
