“You must be Detective Weissbard,” he said. “I’m Rodney Dahlgren, the manager. The officers said you could tell me when I can get back to business.”
“Mr. Dahlgren, there’s been a homicide here. Solving it is my only priority.”
“I’ve got loads that need to move, loads nowhere near this part of the yard. Some of them are perishable. Moving them won’t have any impact.”
Weissbard had a belly full of this guy’s attitude and he’d only been with him for seconds. “This whole area’s a crime scene for as long as I say it is. If you want it to be a month, keep talking.”
Dahlgren stepped back, mouth shut. Weissbard walked over to where some CSI members clustered around an open fifty-five-gallon metal drum. Cambridge the coroner had his head hung over the drum in thoughtful inspection.
“Cambridge,” Weissbard said. “Long time no see.”
“I wish that was true,” he said. “I made sure you were called before we moved anything.”
“Not the esteemed Detective Sergeant Francisco?”
“I seem to misplace that asshole’s number. A lot.”
“I sure appreciate that.”
“You might not after this,” Cambridge said. He pointed a thumb at the big steel drum.
Weissbard looked inside the drum. “Son of a bitch.”
Sidney sat stuffed in the drum, skin gray and sagging but with a darker band of bruising around his neck that Weissbard was way too familiar with. The edge of a six of diamonds playing card stuck out of his mouth.
Sheridan disappeared off home-monitoring radar, and within a day, another Playing Card Killer victim, one who might help finger Sheridan, showed up dead. Homicide rule #1: Coincidences were never coincidences.
“The day guard saw three rats crawling into the open spout on the drum,” Cambridge said. “Kind of odd since he thought it was empty. He found the corpse when he popped the lid. The victim died sometime last night.” Cambridge handed Weissbard a pair of tweezers and a clear evidence bag. “I saved you the honors.”
Weissbard used the tweezers to gently extract the card from the corpse’s mouth. It had the signature red pattern on the back, the mirrored Greek women by the summer and winter trees. Something on the card’s face caught his eye just before he dropped it into the bag. He couldn’t believe his luck. On one edge was a black, greasy fingerprint. The color was similar to the dirt around the rim of the drum.
Looks like Sheridan got a little sloppy working on his home turf, Weissbard thought. He’s finally screwed up. Weissbard sealed the card in the bag and walked over to the fidgety yard manager, Dahlgren.
“You have an employee in a can,” Weissbard said, “and you’re worried about getting business back to normal? When was Sidney’s last shift?”
“Last night. He didn’t clock out.”
“And no one knew that?”
“My evening shift guard is in jail, you might remember. The day- and night-shift guys are covering with overtime. The night guy just thought Sidney forgot to clock out. It’s a signature Sidney move.”
At the main gate, a news van pulled up. Weissbard shook his head. The vultures were already alighting. The media would be whipping the public into a panic. Playing Card Killer escapes to kill again! He wondered who already leaked the playing-card evidence.
The scenario fit perfectly in Weissbard’s mind. Sheridan put two and two together, and figured that his co-worker filled in enough details to get Sheridan arrested. So, to get some vengeance and cover his tracks, the first thing Sheridan did when he chopped himself free of his monitor was to kill Sidney. Sheridan knew this hunting ground like the back of his hand. He could easily sneak in, knowing the guards’ routine. He also knew where the security cameras were, and how to avoid them. Then to top it off, the son of a bitch leaves a damn playing card to rub Weissbard’s face in it.
That was bad news. It meant Sheridan wouldn’t stop. He had somewhere to hide, but his compulsion wouldn’t let him lay low. Once he’d started, he had to keep killing.
Weissbard had to find him before he did it again.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The distant slam of a door snapped Brian out of the dozing stupor that had overcome him. Someone was in the house. His first hope was that the owner, or a plumber, or anyone but Tyler, was checking on the home. He’d even settle for a Jehovah’s Witness. Maybe neighbors had called about a strange car going in and out of the garage, and an honest-to-God member of the Tampa PD had kicked in the door to get him the hell out of here.
“Hey! Help! I’m in the bathroom!”
“Mr. Sheridan?” a deep voice called.
Brian’s heart soared. “Yes, here! In the bathroom! Hurry!”
The door knob jiggled. “Mr. Sheridan?”
“That’s it! In here!”
The door opened. Tyler stuck his head in. “Hello, bro,” he said in the same bass voice.
Brian’s heart sank.
Tyler laughed that snorting, stupid laugh and returned to his normal voice. “Sorry, dude. Just pranking you. Couldn’t resist. Today’s going to be busy, so we need to get started.” He unlocked the wheels of the chair and rolled it forward. “Now, bro, if you need to drop a load just hold it for a few minutes, okay?” Snort-laugh. Out came the big knife and he snapped it open. He reached behind, cut Brian’s arms free, and looked him in the eyes from inches away. “There you go, give ’em a stretch.”
Brian wanted so bad to grab Tyler by the throat and choke the life out of him. He couldn’t move his arms, still frozen along the side of the chair.
“C’mon, little brother. Shake it out.”
Brian moved his fingers. Muscles slowly, painfully rippled back to life up his arms.
“Yeah, that’s it, bro. You got it. Now, shirt off, little brother.”
“Tyler, this isn’t necessary, please.”
Tyler tucked the knife blade under the sleeve of Brian’s shirt. The cold blade grazed his arm. The steely, crazy look returned to Tyler’s eyes. “Shirt off or I cut it off.”
Brian pulled his shirt off over his head. His spine creaked with the effort. Tyler put away his knife and took the shirt. Then he pulled a washcloth from a rack, soaked and soaped it. He tossed the washcloth at Brian’s chest. Brian grabbed it just before it fell between his legs.
“Clean yourself up a bit,” Tyler said. “Can’t have the other half of the family stinking like a crack-house whore.”
The cloth was steaming warm and smelled like roses. Brian scrubbed his face and neck, under his arms, and finished with the sticky mess between his legs.
“Sink,” Tyler said, pointing.
Bryan tossed the washcloth in.
“Yeah!” Tyler cried. “Three-pointer with nothing but net.”
He reached outside the door and retrieved a big bag from McDonald’s. He tossed Brian one, then another, paper-wrapped cheeseburger from inside. The smell of them sent Brian’s mouth to watering. At this point, having fresh and healthy food took a backseat to having any food at all.
“I splurged for the cheese. Nothing’s too good for a family reunion.”
Brian ripped open a wrapper and practically inhaled the sandwich. The combination of fat and protein sent his taste buds tingling. He started on the second sandwich.
Tyler scooped the washcloth out of the sink with the dirty shirt and wadded them in a ball. He took them out of the bathroom. His one foot dragged and Brian noticed the uneven wear on Tyler’s shoes. He wondered if the defect was congenital, something that he missed by some happenstance of birth.
“What happened to your foot?” Brian called after Tyler.
Tyler stepped back in. He closed the door behind him. Gritted teeth had supplanted the good-natured smile. “Fucking polo injury. No wait, I think it was tennis, yeah, that was it. Do you really want to know?”
Damn. I didn
’t mean to set him off. “No. It’s cool. Sorry I asked.”
Tyler’s face morphed back into the cheery boy-next-door. “Hey, got something to show you. You’ll love this.” Tyler pulled a smartphone from the McDonald’s bag. He tapped up a website and turned it to face Brian. A local news anchor sat at a desk, looking grim.
“Brian Sheridan, the alleged Playing Card Killer, appears to have struck again. After escaping from his parents’ house where he was on bail, police believe he doubled back to the trucking company where he worked and made a co-worker there victim number five.”
Brian stopped chewing. “No, no way. What the hell did you do?”
The scene cut to a shot of the big empty steel barrels at the edge of the Orange Trucking Company yard. Crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze and a black coroner’s van stood nearby.
“The body of Sidney Johnson was found stuffed in an empty drum at the trucking firm’s yard. Unconfirmed sources say that the victim was strangled and one of the signature playing cards was found on the body.”
“Six of diamonds,” Tyler said. “I wish they’d be more specific about the cards. I pick them at random but I’d love to hear the crazy theories people come up with to explain what they mean.”
Brian flashed back to the combination of dreams and hallucinations from the past night. Amidst all the things that barely made sense, he remembered seeing hands attaching the lid to a steel drum. And he remembered seeing the six of diamonds.
Brian felt ready to throw up his meal. “What did you kill him for? What did you kill any of them for, but especially why him?”
“Bro, when you do something, you need to commit to doing it. Take skydiving. Once you step out of the door, you’re committed to pull the chute and land. This kill makes sure that you’re committed. No one could ever assign a motive to you killing those strangers, but even the Tampa PD can see you killing the guy who ratted you to the cops.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“And you were really sloppy. Left a big greasy fingerprint on the card this time. I borrowed your finger to get the print while you were sleeping. Took me two tries to get it nice and clear. Our DNA is a perfect match, but not our fingerprints. Weird, huh? Too bad. But that print should seal your deal with the cops. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?”
Brian had thought about escape, made some wildly unrealistic plans where he ended up leading the police straight to Tyler. What good would going to the police do? The evidence against him was more than just circumstantial now, and the story that exonerated him, the story of a long-lost twin who happened to be a serial killer, hell, even Brian barely believed it. The rest of his second cheeseburger slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor.
“Oh, bro,” Tyler admonished him. “Wasting food. Foster Mother #1 said that was a sin. She’d have made me eat that right off this sticky mess you made of the floor.” He kicked the burger toward the door. “Lucky for you I never bought into that.”
Tyler swung the bathroom door open wide. Chill bumps prickled Brian’s chest as the blast of air conditioning crossed the damp residue of the washcloth. Tyler reached outside the door, brought back a T-shirt, and tossed it to Brian. Brian pulled on the shirt. A Pittsburgh Steelers logo filled its chest. Tyler smiled.
“That’s like one of my favorite shirts. See how cool this will be, sharing stuff like real brothers?” The grin drained from Tyler’s face. “Hands back behind the chair.”
Brian sighed and hung them back where they’d been before. What was the point of resisting? What hope was there? Tyler zip-tied them back in position. He rolled Brian back over the toilet and flushed it. The water sprinkled Brian’s bare ass. Tyler laid another towel across Brian’s lap.
“I’m going to start scouting our next adventure. When I get back, we’re going to really start having fun.”
Tyler turned out the bathroom light and closed the door. A second later, the door swung open and Tyler snapped the light back on.
“Whoa, sorry, bro! Didn’t mean to leave you in the dark.”
Tyler closed the door, and Brian felt his spirit go black. He was so screwed. The half of him that wasn’t naked wore the clothes of a serial killer. He was bound to a chair in an unknown house. The police wanted him for a quintet of homicides. At this point, even Daniela had to believe he was the Playing Card Killer. One and a half greasy cheeseburgers roiled in his stomach, threatening to make a return visit.
He wished Tyler had skipped the kidnapping, and just killed him that night in his parents’ house.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The corner closest to the bathroom door had an imperfection.
Two inches off the floor, the contractor had missed smoothing out a bit of the mud that finished the drywall edges. The painter had painted over it anyway. It looked like a cancerous lesion someone had daubed with makeup to match the wall.
There was also a scratch on the side of the sink, and the baseboards in the other corner didn’t meet. Brian had time to see all of this and commit it to memory. Through it all, he had the regular backbeat of the damn drip from the faucet.
A door slammed. Brian perked up and listened, closer this time. The footsteps were uneven, one solid, one softer. His brother’s signature right-foot drag. Brian lowered his head in dejection. The door swung open. Tyler stood there holding a pair of shorts and a pair of socks. He tossed them on Brian’s lap.
“Bro! How goes it, dude? Big event! Today we start the hunt.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Sure you are. See, the problem here is you’ve only experienced the last few minutes, the climax. That’s like only seeing the final scene of a movie. You wouldn’t really get it, wouldn’t be emotionally connected with the characters. So instead, you’ll get to see it all. Start to finish. Behind the scenes with Ty and Bri, the Twin Playing Card Killers.”
“There’s only one killer.”
Tyler smiled. “And according to the cops, that killer’s you, bro. Might as well live up to your hype.”
Tyler cut free Brian’s feet and hands. Brian slowly brought his stiff arms around front. Every muscle burned. Tyler was inches from him, unarmed, but there was no way Brian could move fast enough to take advantage of the situation. And Tyler knew it, the smug bastard.
“Put on some pants,” Tyler said. “And you’ll learn to love going commando. Happens when foster parents don’t believe in underwear.”
Brian rose with all the grace of the rusted Tin Man of Oz as he creaked into an upright position. He pulled on the shorts, zipped them up, and officially disliked going commando.
“Shoes?” he asked.
“Socks will do. You aren’t walking anywhere.”
And you don’t want me running anywhere, either, Brian thought. He put on the white socks. As soon as he was done, Tyler was beside him, looping zip ties around his wrists and ankles.
“To the garage,” Tyler said.
“Tied up?”
“Sure, bro. Hop to it!” Tyler snort-laughed. “Oh, I so crack myself up.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Tyler’s eyes turned hard. His smile evaporated. “Just be happy you have two hopping feet. Get in the damn car.”
Tyler’s unnerving, instantaneous shift from frolicking frat boy to cold killer sent a shiver through Brian. He took two hops to the bathroom door. Tyler’s grin reappeared.
“That’s the spirit, bro!”
In the garage, the back door of the Camry hung wide open. The folded-down rear seat created a big cargo space into the trunk. Little rollup sunshades covered the rear windows. Tyler spun Brian around and sat him down on the seat’s edge. Tyler grabbed a rag and a white plastic bottle from the workbench behind him. He doused the rag from the bottle and shoved it over Brian’s mouth and nose. Brian’s brain went into a tailspin.
“Take a nap, little brot
her. I’ll wake you when the fun starts.”
* * *
Brian woke up bathed in sweat. The car’s stifling, humid air felt straight out of hell. Tyler had added a gag to Brian’s bondage ensemble, a precaution that meant they were somewhere way more public than the house’s garage. Brian lay on his side, feet and hands still bound, facing the trunk’s rear. His watery eyes came into focus. The back of the reverse light housing had been chopped away and the bulb removed, allowing a narrow view of a ubiquitous, bland Florida strip mall. A dingy shop that sold everything for a dollar filled the center location. Brian swept his head against the rough carpet to wipe away some sweat. The trunk liner reeked of mildew.
“Hey, wide awake, little bro?” Tyler said from the front seat. “About time. I don’t want you to miss anything. Every step’s got a purpose, you know.”
“I’m baking back here,” he managed through the gag, slow enough for Tyler to understand.
“Yeah, sorry. Can’t sit out here idling the car, attracting that kind of attention. It’s not so bad up here with the windows cracked open.”
Brian’s mind spooled up escape options. He tried to move his arms and legs, but the zip ties on both had been bound together, hogtie-style. He stretched his head as far as he could, but barely got it off the trunk floor. He turned back enough to get a glimpse of the front seats. The backup camera view played in the center-stack touchscreen. The rearview mirror hung canted at the perfect odd angle, down at Brian. Tyler’s eyes filled it, watching him.
He thought again about an interior trunk release. The little glow-in-the-dark handle would be here somewhere. He could maybe hook it with his zip-tie bindings, pop the deck lid. Someone passing by would see him bound in the trunk. Even in this rundown neighborhood that would warrant a call to the cops. He looked all around. He stopped and sighed. Only the jagged edge of a severed cable hung from the trunk lid. Tyler was always one step ahead.
The Playing Card Killer Page 17
