Psychobyte

by Cat Connor

  “Won’t be long,” I said to Kurt.

  “I’m going to locate Troy Fallon and check where Mallory Stevens is. We’ll pick them up once you’re ready.”

  I nodded and hurried down to the women’s bathroom. It didn’t matter how many women were drained in showers, hot water and soap held great appeal.

  Fifteen minutes later I felt clean and warm. I shoved my saturated clothing into a plastic bag and then into the trash. The odds of the stains coming out seemed slim and I didn’t need the reminders. Before putting on a fresh shirt, I blasted my hair with the wall-mounted hairdryer. Red in the mirror caught my eye. The cut on my upper right arm, now bleeding again, needed attention. It didn’t look too bad. I took a clean dressing from my bag and stuck it to the wound with some paper tape. Kurt would do what needed doing. I pulled on a clean shirt and fastened the buttons. That’d be easier without broken knuckles.

  Dry, and feeling as okay I could expect to feel, I headed back to my office.

  Inside, I kicked the door shut and dropped the bag on my desk, ready to take home and restock.

  “How you feeling?” Kurt asked from the couch.

  “Not too bad. Arm needs stitching, I think.”

  “Yeah, thought it would. Come over here and sit down.” I spotted his medical pack by his feet. He lay it on the couch next to him and unzipped it. “Take your shirt off, please.”

  “Because you asked so nicely,” I said, avoiding his eyes.

  I removed my shirt and sat on the coffee table in front of him while he took off the dressing and had a closer look at the cut.

  “I’ve seen worse,” he said with a smile. “Definitely stitching … local?”

  Didn’t usually give me a choice.

  “Yeah, local.”

  While Kurt took out his gear and prepped the wound site, I had time to think. My mind skirted the perimeter of waking up on a cold floor and zeroed in on the men and the art.

  Art.

  God. Art from human blood. Spatter patterns. Maybe vampire wasn’t too far off the mark. Some people are sick. They defy reason with the things they do. I imagined the media frenzy that would follow the breaking of this story. The pieces already sold would sky-rocket in value. That revolted me.

  “All right?” Kurt asked, tying off the suture.

  “Yep.” No, I wasn’t. “No.”

  “Conway … what?”

  “Fentanyl. That’s how they got me.” I paused. Not liking voicing my concerns. “Fentanyl. Will that harm the space invaders?”

  “While you were in the shower I looked up the Federal Drug Administration guidelines for Fentanyl use in pregnancy.”

  “And?”

  “It’s an FDA category C drug. That means animal reproduction studies have shown adverse effects on fetuses and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in humans.”

  “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

  “Category C also states that the benefits from the drug may outweigh the potential risk.”

  “I’m not encouraged, Kurt.”

  “I dug a bit further. I think the space invaders will be just fine. I’ll let your specialist know and he can monitor you as well. Trust me, Conway, I don’t think you have anything to worry about from a single inhalation of fentanyl.”

  “Okay.”

  Maybe. Pressing thoughts of drugs to the back of my mind. “I need to check something. I can’t see the connection between everything I think is connected.”

  “All right. Do what you need to do, just take it easy.”

  “I’m planning on using the computer not running a marathon.”

  All the things I’d come across regarding the case converged. Somewhere everyone involved met. I needed to find that place. It wasn’t prison but Hank was the key.

  I opened a search engine designed to work within the Darknet. Sure, possible they all met because of a Craig’s List classified ad, but I doubted it. I could feel Kurt’s presence as he sat in my office, waiting.

  My conversation with Christine surfaced. I thought about the expression on her face when I asked if she’d seen Lette’s artwork. Unimpressed. I had a feeling she’d be horrified when she found out the truth. Perfect Storm, she said he called it.

  I typed Perfect Storm into the search engine. Up came a photo of a piece of art, colored wool on black canvas. Exactly as Christine described it.

  Winning.

  I had a feeling the image wasn’t just an image but a link to a web meeting place. I called Sandra and asked her to come to my office.

  Seconds later she bounced into the room. “You summoned me, O Esteemed Leader.”

  “I need your skill and I need it now, I want you to hack into this site.”

  I beckoned her to my desk and showed her the screen. I moved so she could take my chair.

  Sandra sat and moved my laptop to a better position for her. “Darknet. I hate it in here,” she said. “Murky and monsters hide in the depths.”

  “Yes, they do. As soon as you get in, call me, I need to know what you find straightaway.”

  “Yes, O Holder of the Flashlight.”

  It was hard not to smile. Sandra never ran out of unique ways to address me.

  “We’re all done. You ready to go pick up Fallon?” Kurt asked.

  “Yeah.” The sound of fingers typing followed me to the door.

  “Where’s Stevens?” I asked. “We have her, yes?”

  “Oh yeah, we have her. She’s in custody.”

  “She sewed the pieces, she created those atrocities.”

  Kurt nodded. “Yes, she did. Sam and Lee found the studio where she worked. We think Lette designed and she sewed.”

  Who first? Lette or Fallon? I deemed Fallon more of a flight risk simply because she was a cop.

  “Let’s go get Detective Fallon.” Paused by my desk. My brain stopped.

  “Conway?”

  “Where’s my weapon?”

  “Hasn’t been recovered yet as far as I know.”

  Annoying. With my left hand, I reached into the third drawer down and withdrew my backup weapon and holster.

  “Badge?” I asked, looking at Kurt while I fastened the holster to my belt.

  “That I do have,” he replied, flipping a black object through the air at me.

  I caught it with my left hand. My badge wallet.

  “It’s clean … “

  “Yeah, and your phone’s okay too, they were in the younger male’s pockets.”

  I shoved the wallet into the pocket of my jeans. Kurt passed me my phone. I looked at it for a moment as my mind rolled over the possible outcomes regarding Fallon. I didn’t for one moment think it would go well.

  “We good now?” he asked.

  “Just about.” I woke my phone and called SWAT.

  Andrews answered his phone on the third ring. “Conway, how can we help?”

  “We have an arrest to make and I’d like SWAT along for the ride.”

  “Send the address,” he said. “You’re clean now, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m clean,” I said with a laugh. “Thanks for that.”

  Andrews’ laughter stopped abruptly when I hung up. I looked at Kurt and waited, he knew what I wanted. He gave me the address for Fallon and I texted it to Andrews.

  “Now?” Kurt asked.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah. Now.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Under My Thumb

  It took forty minutes to get to Detective Fallon’s home. As we entered her street, we passed a police car parked on the side of the road. Another one waited about fifty yards up the street from Fallon’s home. A black truck rolled in behind us. SWAT.

  “Our doing?” I asked, nodding to the police cars.

  “Yes.”

  “How badly will this go, do you think?”

  “Not smooth,” Kurt replied. “I’ve had her under surveillance since you disappeared. She’s at home.”

  He pulled a wad of papers from his inside jacket pocket and h
anded them to me.

  “A warrant to arrest and a search warrant,” I said as I opened the paperwork and ran my eyes over the legalese. “Good work.”

  Kurt’s right eyebrow rose. “Obtained mostly on your gut feeling, so I hope you find something to corroborate what you think you know.”

  We needed records for the support groups she ran. Attendance records or notations telling us who was at each meeting. Something solid that connected her to our victims and then to the whole mess. Better still, the files and victim reports I was sure existed but weren’t in the system.

  If I were in her position, I would’ve been busy shredding and burning.

  But then I wouldn’t be in her position because I’m not fucking stupid.

  “Right, so we go knock on the door with SWAT and get this evil bitch off the streets.”

  Kurt swung his door open and got out.

  I didn’t move. I wanted to but I didn’t. Kurt ducked his head and looked into the car. “You joining me?”

  “Yeah.” I reached across my body and opened the door with my left hand. Dread built so fast it almost swamped me. I pushed it down and climbed out of the car.

  “Conway, something bothering you?” Kurt asked from the sidewalk.

  “There’s something wrong here,” I replied, looking at the house. “We should’ve moved on her earlier.”

  That’s what it was. Death.

  Andrews appeared beside me. “Let’s do this.”

  Jerry and Tom were next to Kurt. Every time those two teamed up, I ended up with a cartoon running in my head.

  We approached with caution. Jerry and Tom first, then Kurt carrying the paperwork and me, with Andrews and two other men in the rear. The two men behind Andrews peeled off and went around the back.

  Kurt knocked on the front door.

  My heart pounded as the seconds ticked away.

  He knocked again.

  Tom and Jerry peered through windows near the door.

  “You sure she’s home?” Jerry asked over his shoulder. He moved to another window, listening. His expression changed. “Talbot says the shower is running.”

  Guess he was one of the guys who’d gone round the back.

  Shower. That can’t be good. Hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  Andrews touched my arm. I jumped. “What is it?”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  There’s nothing good in that house. “Let’s get in there,” I said.

  Tom and Jerry acknowledged me with a nod.

  My gut said we were too late and Fallon was dead.

  Tom tried the door. It opened. Not a good sign.

  He and Jerry went in first. We followed behind with Andrews as they cleared rooms and located the bathroom. Tom banged on the bathroom door.

  No answer.

  He looked at me. My heart pounded in my chest as I nodded. He turned the handle and the door swung open. Running water. No steam. Clothes folded neatly in a pile on a chair by the vanity. Folded clothes, not missing clothes as at the crime scenes.

  “Hello!” Tom called.

  Nothing.

  “Tom,” I said looking past him. “The shower.”

  The black shower curtain was closed. A cloying metallic smell roiled my gut. Blood ‒ different from every crime scene I’d been to lately. This one hadn’t been cleaned.

  Tom flicked the edge and then ripped it back. Red streaked the white walls. I followed the blood spurts up the walls. Noting how it’d run back down. Looked like several of the pieces I’d seen in the gallery.

  Arterial more than artistic.

  Away from the water at the back of the tub lay the bloodied naked body of Troy Fallon. Kurt stepped around me and bent down, his gloved fingers checking her pulse. Habit. Her cloudy eyes said she was long gone. The shower head pointed downward with most of the water going straight down the drain. He reached up and turned off the shower. Instant silence.

  “There’s a knife in here,” Kurt said. “Deep gashes severing arteries on both wrists.”

  “Suicide?” I asked, looking at the mess up the walls and all over her.

  “It’s possible,” Kurt replied.

  I looked at the shower head and at the position of Fallon’s body. The way she lay, the water couldn’t quite reach her; blood ran from her body and joined the stream of water, diluted, down the drain.

  I turned and left the room in search of fresh air. I called out before opening the back door. Not locked. She’d made it easy for us to get in and find her.

  “Conway coming out.”

  Two SWAT men greeted me when I stepped through the doorway.

  “What happened?” one asked.

  “Possible suicide,” I replied, dragging my phone from my pocket and sitting on the back step. “Stand down.”

  The men turned and walked away. Dead people don’t fight. There was no need for SWAT to stay with me. Watching them walk away, I saw Andrews heading back to the truck. He probably had the same thought as me.

  I made a call to Delta A. “Sandra, send the ME to my location, please.”

  “Trouble?”

  “No. Troy Fallon was dead when we arrived.”

  I flicked a small stone off the step and watched it bounce across the path.

  “Anything else?”

  “No. We’re good. Send the ME. Let Sam and Lee know that Fallon is dead.”

  “Consider it done, O Genie of the Arrest.”

  I hung up but stayed where I was. Going back into the house wasn’t a good idea. I flicked another small stone off the step and watched it bounce as it hit the concrete. She killed herself. Made sense after what she’d done. My finger smacked another small stone, harder this time; it flew off at an angle into the side of the garbage bin near the back corner of the house before landing on the ground. There was something on the garbage bin.

  Dirt. A smudge.

  I jumped to my feet. Four strides and I was next to the bin. Definitely a dark smudge on the side of the bin. I looked at my legs in relation to the smudge. Almost hip height. Transfer. I was sure I was looking at blood.

  Someone with blood on their clothing bumped into the bin.

  Spinning around to face the house, I yelled, “Kurt. It’s a crime scene!”

  I ran out to the curb and signaled the closest police car. The car door opened and a cop ran toward me.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Did you note all traffic using this street since you were stationed here?”

  He nodded and pulled his notebook from his top pocket, opened it, and showed me the page. I ran my finger down the list. Times, car description and tags. On the second pass, I paused on a red car. Why? I checked my watch. Two hours since the red Ford Taurus was seen.

  We’d come across a lot of cars since the case began but only one red Ford Taurus leaped to the fore. Emilio Herrera’s car.

  “SSA Conway, have a QV for you.” I rattled off the tag number to comms.

  “Registered owner Emilio Herrera.” Comms paused before giving me his address.

  The sound of Emilio’s name dragged spiky twigs up my spine.

  Moments later I handed the notebook back to the cop in front of me.

  Herrera lived two blocks away. Could be that he traveled that way regularly. Maybe this was nothing but a coincidence. The voices in my head laughed.

  Maybe’s ass.

  The cop waited. I smiled at him. “Good work.”

  “Need anything else, ma’am?”

  “Set up a perimeter please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I headed for the SWAT truck. Andrews swung open the door and climbed down.

  “Problem?”

  “Yeah. You could say that. We need to go visit an FBI employee.”

  Kurt ran up. “We’ve got evidence of her involvement in creating and running support groups and found some police complaints matching our victims. We’ve also found shredded evidence,” he said. “She was about as involved as she could get without actually killin
g anyone herself.”

  “That’s good.” Not for the victims but from our point of view. I thought about the destroyed evidence. “We can reassemble shredded paper.”

  Kurt smiled. “Yes.”

  Maybe she did kill herself. If someone killed her then why leave evidence behind?

  “Any mention of Emilio Herrera in what you saw?”

  “No.” He took a step back and eyed me with interest. “Strange question to ask.”

  “It may be nothing,” I said.

  Yeah. I didn’t believe that for one second.

  “Conway, it’s never nothing when it comes out of your mouth.”

  One day it will be.

  “Herrera’s car was seen two hours ago on this street but he lives nearby so could be his usual route.”

  “You think otherwise …”

  “Hmm, I don’t know what to think.” Herrera being in the vicinity bugged me. “If someone intended to visit Fallon and saw the police cars, how else could they get into the house?”

  “All the properties on this side of the road back onto woods, those woods back onto properties on the next street over.” Andrews climbed into the truck and emerged with his iPad. “Take a look at this.” He showed us a satellite image of the area. “See that?” He pointed to what looked like an access way into the woods.

  “There’s one farther up Fallon’s street too,” I said, pointing to another access way. “The woods are public land?”

  “Yes, they are. No back fences to speak of, either,” Andrews said.

  He was right. Fallon and her neighbors backed right onto the woods. No problem for someone to walk up the access way on the other street, through the five hundred yards of woods and into her property. I waved at the cop I’d spoken to and he came back.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I want you and your partner to take a walk through the woods behind Fallon’s house and see what you can find. You’re looking for evidence. Also, find the access way to the next street and see if anyone over there saw that red car on your list.” Too narrow a field of inquiry. “See if they recognize any of the cars on your list.”

  “Right away, ma’am.”

  I heard the radio squawk as he called his partner while he walked away.

  Kurt hovered.

  “Okay, what?” I asked.