WIDOW

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  Samson gazed at the face of the dead man. It was obvious to anyone familiar with the case that this death was an aberration from the normal MO. This man was young, in his twenties, whereas the other victims had been older. He didn't look like an ex-con or a wino and Samson would lay even money that he had nothing criminal on his record. He would bet the victim had been murdered here.

  He thought he knew the victim's identity. The desk at the downtown station had had calls for two days from a hysterical woman reporting her missing husband. Until now it had been treated as an abandonment—so many men walked off from their wives. But Samson felt in his gut this was the woman's missing spouse. She'd be called in to identify the body, if this body fit the description.

  Ignoring the racket of the crowd at the perimeter of the scene and the crime unit photographer and investigators, the local deputy who had sent word to HPD, the fisherman who had found the floater, Samson leaned closer, and noticed bruises on the man's neck just to the side of his windpipe. He must have been half strangled. But that wouldn't be the cause of death. Poison would. Had the killer held this man down by the throat to make him drink? If so, it threw out the theory that this time they might be looking for a female serial killer. There were not too many women strong enough to force a man weighing approximately one hundred and fifty-five pounds into imbibing a poisoned liquid.

  Samson stood again and turned for his car. He waded through the inquisitive onlookers and media types. Some reporters tried to get him to make a statement, but he waved them off like annoying flies. He started the car and switched on the air, hoping to get the stink of death out of his nostrils. The briny deep was not kind to a corpse.

  Back at the station, Dod broached him in the walkway between desks, blocking him from reaching his own desk. “Tell me about it,” Dod implored.

  “Another floater. What do you want to know?”

  “Will you start a task force now?”

  “Dod, you'll be the first I tell if I do.” He brushed past, but knew Dod followed right on his heels. Sudden anger surfaced and before Samson knew it, he had whipped around to face the other detective. “Don't you have your own cases? Can't you stay off my back even one goddamn minute?”

  Dod flinched and his face reddened. “I have plenty of cases,” he said. “It's just that my homicides are never quite as full of potential . . . media glory . . . as yours are.”

  “Well, now isn't that a fucking shame? Why didn't you try out for anchor man on the Channel Eleven news if you wanted to get your mug on television?”

  Dod did not retreat, but neither did he pursue the conversation. He stared hard at Samson, unmoving.

  Samson shrugged, swore again at the state of police work and the world in general, made it to his desk, and snatched up the phone. Someone had to call that woman with the missing husband. The sooner the floater was identified, the sooner Samson could find out his whereabouts two nights ago, the night the ME estimated he had died.

  If the woman had any information that could help him, he'd be hard-pressed not to leap around the bullpen like a lunatic high on PCP.

  Dod passed by the desk just as the woman answered the phone. From the corner of his eye Samson saw him wink.

  Now what the hell was that about?

  ~*~

  On his first foray into the hot, glimmering sexual milieu of the Montrose clubs, Detective Dodge took with him his girlfriend, Mona. It was a big mistake.

  “You really think I'm going to accompany you into stripper joints?” Mona's eyebrows rose so high they were lost beneath her shaggy bangs. “I'm not going in places where women dance naked and that's that.”

  So it was. He tried leading her into another club, one that didn't advertise women performers, and it turned out to be a leather bar. Mona's eyebrows ran for the border of her hairline again. “Out!” she hissed. “Take me out of here.”

  They tried a couple of more places, but Mona found something morally offensive about each one and finally she put down her feet on the sidewalk and would not move. “Take me home, Dod. I don't want to go on any of your undercover assignments ever again.”

  He had not realized what a prude Mona was, but his worst mistake had been not knowing the area, and stumbling into all the wrong places with her hanging from his arm.

  The second time he went fishing in Montrose, he went alone. He knew Samson's serial-murder cases down to the minutest detail. He knew this was where Samson was hunting for clues. He knew if he, Detective Dodge, found a lead and worked it and came close to solving the crimes before Samson, a promotion was almost certain. Brass wouldn't like the idea he'd gone out in the Lone Cowboy mode, or that he stepped over the line to intrude in another detective's investigation but, if he solved it, if he actually caught the killer, they'd forgive all that. His star would rise straight into the stratosphere.

  It was tricky. If he was caught prowling—interfering, they'd call it—in Samson's territory, he'd be reprimanded, and it would hurt his career. He had to stay out of Samson's way. He had to be very clever, more than a little manipulative, and as deceptive as a timber rattler lying among wood chips.

  He found that he rather liked the clubs. There was always talk about Detective Samson, how he hung out down here even before there was a connection with the floaters. Most of the men shrugged and said what the hell, he's single, let the guy alone. Dod was one of those few who, though he kept it to himself, thought Samson was just two shades over into the blue world. He didn't know what it was that was kinked about him, though he certainly did speculate, but there was something.

  He might have any kind of secret life. He might even be a frigging closet faggot for all Dod knew, though he pretty much doubted that. Or Samson might be into the S and M scene, which was a distinct possibility. Or he could even like to cross-dress or have the hots for transsexuals.

  It had to be something. And if Dod happened to ferret out the secret while hunting for the Gulf Water Killer (the unofficial nickname for Samson's case), wouldn't the police psychiatrist be interested in hearing that little bit of information?

  Dod smiled over his drink. He was doing Seven and Sevens while watching the women dance. He didn't drink all that often and he was feeling slightly woozy. Fuzzy around the old brain stem, he thought, better watch it.

  The place was called Chez Tigress and the girls weren't really girls, they were women, and not particularly pretty women. A dancer calling herself Babycakes was on stage, gyrating to a song by Extreme, but Dod wasn't too interested. He swung his head around to scan the crowd. It was late, closing in on midnight, and the hours, God, they were hell on him, but if he wanted a promotion . . .

  He caught a man looking at him from across the room and his gaze stopped in its tracks. He weighed the possibilities. Was this a come-on or was this something else that might help him? He gave a half-grin and glanced over the rest of the room. By the time his gaze had wandered back to the man, he saw that he was on his way across the floor toward him.

  Dod stood, wobbly, catching himself on the table edge, and swearing below his breath. He had to lay off the booze or he was going to be shitface drunk any minute now. No good, no good.

  “Hey,” Dod said.

  “Hello. You're a detective, right? Homicide, HPD?”

  Dod frowned and lowered his backside into the chair. He motioned the man into the chair opposite. “Who said? And what of it?”

  The man made himself comfortable, spreading his legs out from the table, leaning back in the chair. “The bartender knows when he's got a cop in the house. He told me.”

  “Which leads me to repeat: what of it?” Dod would not usually be so abrasive, not since he was down here to talk to the street and the regulars to glean information, but there was something goddamn cocky about the man across from him that he didn't like. At all.

  “I hear you've got some photos you've been showing around. I frequent Chez Tigress about three times a week. Maybe I can help.”

  Dod narrowed his eyes. “Yeah,
maybe you can.” He pulled the photos from his jacket pocket and handed them over. They were copies from Samson's files. He'd had a friend at a photo shop copy them in one hour so he could slip them back in the files before they were missed. Samson ever found out he'd done that . . .

  The man slowly riffled through the photos. While he did so, Dod tried to size him up. What was his angle? How many people volunteered to help a cop? Precious goddamn few.

  The guy looked innocuous enough. Brown hair mostly covered by a black gimmee cap. An untrimmed, droopy mustache. Fat. He might sell insurance. Or real estate.

  Well, see anyone you know?”

  The photos were handed back. Dod inspected them, then grunted unconsciously. He never liked looking at those morgue shots. Gave him the creeps.

  “I don't recognize anyone.”

  “Well . . . thanks for trying anyway.” Dod held out his hand to shake so he could dismiss the stranger, but the other man leaned forward abruptly. Dod let his hand drift to the table.

  The man said in a low voice, “I know some people . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “. . . who might be able to help you.”

  “What people would that be?”

  “They hang out at the Blue Boa. You been there?”

  Dod tried to remember. Shit if he could keep the club names straight, especially after four Seven and Sevens. He slowly shook his head. “I don't know, I might have.”

  “Well, we could head over there now before the joint closes and I could introduce you. It's a girl. She has sharp eyes and a great memory. Knows just about everyone comes down here.”

  Dod felt a tiny thrill of excitement needling through the Seagram fog. This was what he had been hoping for. A break. Someone in the know. Someone who knew the regulars and might remember the faces. “You sure this is worth my time?” He wanted to be convinced, but there was still that indefinable something about the guy he hadn't quite latched onto yet and it nagged at him.

  Although Dod's record as a detective wasn't anywhere near as successful as Mitchell Samson's (he thought maybe that was the lieutenant's fault for not giving him the really difficult cases to crack), he had spent some time on the street as a patrolman. He didn't have the great hound dog instincts of a top-grade investigator—that's why he was always paired with better men, more experienced men, or he was put on the paperwork detail—but he still had his years on the force, and even without possessing finely honed instincts, he knew there was something off about this whole deal with the man at his table. He wanted to follow up any leads, but he had to be very careful while doing so.

  “Okay,” he said, pushing up from the table. “Let's go see your friend at the Blue Boa.”

  The stranger smiled behind his mustache and, just for one single second, an internal alarm sounded making Detective Dodge wish he hadn't agreed to go with him.

  Now it was too late.

  ~*~

  “She's not here, damn.”

  Dod looked around nervously, relieved Samson wasn't in the room. “Well, maybe another night. Give me her name, I'll check it out.”

  “Tell you what, I'll take you to her house. She doesn't live far from here. She's . . . well, she's sort of my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, I don't know . . .” Dod had turned for the door. He thought he'd call it a night. The Seagrams were making his stomach burn. Could he be developing ulcers from this job?

  “I'm telling you, she remembers every face she's ever seen. What do you call it? A photogenic memory?”

  “Photographic.” Dod stood fingering the photos in his jacket pocket and wondering if this was a wild-goose chase or maybe worth his time. What the hell. It was the first break he'd gotten. He'd kick himself tomorrow if he let this one slide past and it turned out to be the one witness who could break the case wide open.

  “Okay, take me there.”

  “Just leave your car here, why don't you? I can bring you back. It's only a few blocks.”

  Dod nodded and followed the fat man down the sidewalk. He secretly slid his hand over his sidearm just to make sure it was there.

  ~*~

  Sherilee opened the door to two men at twelve-forty-five. She peered into the yellow light from her porch bulb and said, “Son, is that you?”

  “Yeah, can we come in? This is a homicide cop wants to talk to you about something.”

  Sherilee visibly recoiled at the news. She saw now the other man did indeed look like a cop. She had been off the street too long. She should have made him the second she laid eyes on him.

  She stepped back into the hall and let them enter. Whatever Son was up to, it was his business. He wouldn't be bringing a cop to her house to get her in any trouble. It was something else he had planned and, knowing Son, it probably wasn't going to be a good scene.

  Son hustled the cop in front of him, Sherilee trailing behind after closing the front door. The hallway was dimly lit by light filtering in from the living room where she had been watching the late show on TV. She didn't know anything was wrong until she stumbled into Son's back. He'd halted and then she heard the cop falling to the floor with a loud thunk.

  “Son?”

  He turned to her and took her by the arms. “You don't know anything about this. I'm taking him out to my car and you won't be involved.”

  “A cop? What're ya gonna do to a cop?” She could see past Son now to the man face down on the floor. Blood seeped from the back of his head, staining his thinning hair red.

  “It doesn't matter what I'm doing with him. He's a threat to me. Do you understand? I have to get him out of the way. Now go on in the bedroom and shut the door. Forget you ever saw me. Or him.”

  She did as he said. She had no love for the pigs anyway. What the hell did she care what happened to him? What worried her, though, was that she had just seen evidence of Son's capacity for violence. She had always suspected he was capable of more than brutal sex followed by weeping at her bedside. There was a deeper river of abnormality running through him than his sexual preferences might lead a less experienced woman to imagine. And tonight, there was a new frigidity in his eyes she had never seen before.

  She closed the bedroom door and stood leaning against it, listening.

  She thought it wise to be afraid of Son after this incident.

  Very afraid.

  Maybe she'd put her house on the market and move to Tucson where her sister lived. Houston was getting too weird for a working woman.

  Thirty-Three

  “Your boyfriend is head of the murder case,” he said. Shadow sucked in her breath and held it. “What do you want with me?”

  She was home, she had not been in to work for three days. When she answered the phone at a little past three in the morning, dragging herself up from sleep, she had no idea who might be calling, but she recognized his voice immediately. There was a hint of British accent in it.

  “He told you already? Baby, he'll put you away.”

  “Then maybe he should. You have to stop this,” she said, switching on the table lamp to dispel the darkness in the room. She felt sick all over. Should she hang up? Should she listen? What was she to do?

  “I can't stop,” he said in a sibilant hiss so that she almost missed the words. Was he speaking through cloth? He sounded muffled.

  “You have to!” She heard her voice nearing screaming point and tried to gather herself. “You have to stop,” she repeated. “I'll stop if you will.” Now she sounded like a child making pacts, but she couldn't help it.

  “You already have,” he said, disapprovingly. “You weren't supposed to do that. We're partners now. But I'm doing all the work and you've quit.”

  “You killed another one?” She didn't really want to hear his answer. She had to make him understand that he was going to bring them both down.

  “Yes. He makes my third.”

  She closed her eyes. “Tonight?”

  “Yes. He was a cop. Not your boyfriend, take it easy. It was another cop. They're getting clo
ser. The only reason I've left your boyfriend is because I care about you.”

  “Oh Jesus.”

  “I'm doing it for you, making you look good, making sure your name will go down in the annals of crime.”

  “You're a maniac.”

  “And you aren't? You think you can really stop? You can't. You're just like me. It's in your blood now. You'll never stop.”

  “Liar!” She slammed the phone into the cradle so hard she hurt her fingers. She put her fingertips into her mouth and only then realized there were tears on her face. She tasted them, salty, on her tongue.

  Mitch was looking for the killer. He was heading the case. He had mentioned the murders, but he had never said he was leading the investigation. She couldn't see him again.

  That thought hurt so much she shook her head against it. But she couldn't see him. He'd figure it out and hate her forever. That was part of his job, hating the criminals, wasn't it? He would have to take her in, testify in court against her. She should leave town, take Charlene and flee.

  To where?

  And what was she going to do with the man who called himself Son? Her partner. Her alter ego. The one who was going to destroy them both before he was finished.