Black Widow

by Victor Methos

  Tally looked to Kai, who nodded.

  “Okay,” Tally said, “Stanton’s point on this. Who else wants in?”

  As the team made the preparations for the takedown, Stanton pulled up a photo of Heidi Rousseau. She was lovely in a way that he knew had been exploited since she was young. Marilyn Monroe’s beauty was recognized at nine years old, the same age she was raped for the first time. The world of men had a way of smelling out innocent beauty like blood, and destroying it.

  Heidi’s hair was platinum blonde but had been dyed from its natural color of black. Stanton couldn’t help but see the pain in her eyes. She wasn’t smiling in any picture he saw.

  “Shit’s getting real,” Jones said, coming up behind him. “That her?”

  “Yup.”

  “Holy shit. She like a model or something?”

  “I don’t think so.” He thought a moment. “Let’s go see her,” he said, rising.

  “What? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the team’s setting everything up still.”

  “We’re not going to take her down. Just watch her. Come on.”

  Queen’s Medical was a modern hospital with a flair for island décor. Lined with palm trees and torches, the sky above it blue and cloudless, it had the look of a middle-class resort rather than a hospital.

  Stanton parked in visitor parking. Jones looked to him.

  “You sure about this?” Jones asked.

  “I want to see her.”

  “They’ll be ready to move on her tomorrow morning, man. We just gotta get the arrest warrant.”

  Stanton thought about how to phrase his next words for the young detective. “Connor, every person has an aura. And I don’t mean some metaphysical cloud that surrounds them. They have a way of thinking that determines what their life is like. Their thoughts make actions, which make their choices, which make up their life. All those things are in line. If you watch the person, you can almost see it. See their aura, what makes them who they are. I want to see her so I can observe what’s there.”

  He grimaced. “You sure as hell talk silly for someone with a PhD.”

  Stanton grinned. “You ready?”

  Jones shook his head and hopped out of the jeep.

  19

  Stanton walked to the help desk and smiled. The woman seated across from him, a volunteer he guessed, looked up at him through thick glasses.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to know if Dr. Heidi Rousseau is in today, please.”

  “Okay, hang on.”

  She pulled something up on a computer and took a solid three minutes reading through it. Stanton looked around at the patients. He noticed a man walking through the automatic doors with a cane. His sweatpants were pulled up to the knees and he wore a gray, dirty sleeveless shirt. A baseball cap was pushed back onto his head. They exchanged glances, both of them recognizing the other. Stanton couldn’t place him, though.

  “She will be here at eleven,” the volunteer said.

  Stanton checked the clock on his phone. It was five minutes ’til. “Thanks.”

  Stanton turned away from her and went to a semi-circle of couches and chairs in the lobby. A coffee and pastry cart was near. Jones bought a cinnamon Danish and a coffee, and sat next to him.

  “I have other cases, you know,” Jones said.

  “You’re free to leave. But I think you want to stay.”

  He nodded, taking a bite of the Danish. “Hell yes, I do. I’ve… I’ve never dealt with a serial before. All the killings we get are gangland or domestic violence.”

  “They’re interesting cases,” Stanton said.

  “That’s it? That’s the advice you got for me? It’s interesting?”

  Stanton glanced back to see if the man with the cane was still there, but he was gone. “They involve the most work. Most murders, the killers either still hang around or a bunch of witnesses saw who did it. Serial murder isn’t like that. You have to take what evidence is there and extrapolate. Not everyone can do it.”

  Jones sipped at his coffee. “How do you know if you can do it?”

  “You just have to jump in and try.”

  Jones thought this over a moment. “So what’s the real deal, man? Kai has never treated nobody like he treats you. What’s up with you two?”

  “He’s a good friend. He’s the one that talked me into moving out here, actually. I was planning on moving to Australia after I retired from the SDPD.”

  “Why there?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Just seemed far away enough, I guess… she’s here.”

  Stanton watched as Heidi Rousseau walked into the hospital. She wasn’t wearing scrubs yet. Just jeans and a loose-fitting top, with sunglasses pushed up into her hair. No makeup on, but she looked more stunningly beautiful than the photos from the DMV could have captured.

  She walked past them, a quick glance to Stanton, before she turned a corner and was gone.

  “Well?” Jones said. “What’s your spidey-sense say about her?”

  Stanton thought about her a moment. His stomach was in knots, and he knew that he didn’t have any impression of her.

  Usually, when he saw a person for the first time, Stanton could get a quick summary in his head and then add or subtract theories about that person based on later behaviors. He saw it much like sculpting. Starting with a mass of clay and chipping away pieces based on the things the person did or said. Until he was left with a lifelike image of that person’s psyche.

  But with Heidi Rousseau, he got nothing.

  Stanton spent the day going through the autopsy and police reports for Alex Waters and Hugh Neal. If the takedown went well tomorrow, Heidi would be here and he’d be the one interviewing her.

  It was an unwritten rule that the detective assigned to the case was the one that interviewed the suspect. Stanton had seen grudges held for years by detectives who felt they didn’t get the first crack at a suspect on a case they were working. Once, he’d even seen a fist-fight break out. Someone from Sex Crimes thought a collar on a homicide was good on a case they were investigating. They snuck in and got the first interview without the homicide detective knowing about it.

  When the homicide detective found out, he waited for him by the coffee maker in the break room, smiled, and then popped him in the face. Breaking his nose.

  Stanton had asked Kai for more cases. He knew that the other detectives were beginning to resent him for the favoritism he was being shown. But Kai said that the Black Widow deaths were the most important cases right now and that he wouldn’t give him anything else until it was resolved.

  After reading the reports, Stanton checked the clock. It was lunchtime. Some of the other detectives got together and debated where to go. He waited for an invitation, but none came. So he went down the elevators and onto the street.

  He walked down the sidewalk and across an intersection. This part of the city, not one he had really explored before joining the force, was one of the cleanest he’d seen. Many buildings in Honolulu were worn down because of the intense humidity and rain, but the buildings here appeared well maintained and hygienic.

  He stopped at a restaurant with a veranda and sat down. A waitress came out and brought him a menu, and he ordered a Diet Coke. Couples and men in suits were spaced around him. He listened to a few of their conversations. Most were about work or relationships: the two things that seemed to take up most of life.

  A thought came to him from long ago. Eli Sherman, the first partner he’d ever had as a homicide detective, had told him something about that once. Before Sherman was convicted of the homicides of two girls and then escaped custody. Stanton couldn’t remember now what it was that Sherman had told him.

  He ordered pulled pork ravioli with mango sauce. The waitress was a young girl with a tattoo on her leg. Her shorts were far higher than necessary and her shirt too tight. That must have worked to draw higher tips, but it also attracted attention from the wrong people. Pe
ople that saw her as raw materials to be used for their own pleasure.

  The ravioli came out quickly, and Stanton ate half and had the other half boxed. He paid and walked back to the precinct. Standing at the entrance a moment, he changed his mind and went to his jeep. Placing the food on the passenger seat, he climbed in and started the vehicle.

  Queen’s Medical was busier now than it had been in the morning. Particularly the emergency room, which now had a waiting line.

  He parked in the visitor parking again, though he could have identified his jeep as a police vehicle to security and parked in the law enforcement stalls right next to the entrance. Walking in, he was hit with the scent of the hospital. Something that hadn’t bothered him this morning.

  Stanton had been the one to discover that Sherman had killed the two women, and possibly another ten that were never found. Sherman had put two slugs in him and nearly killed him. Stanton spent a full month in recovery.

  Though he’d been in the hospital many times since, even slipped into a coma, that experience with Sherman was the freshest in his mind. The one that tainted every other hospital, and probably would for the rest of his life.

  He walked the halls, listening to the conversations around him. Making sure his firearm and badge were hidden from view, he had to go back to the jeep and get his blazer. Buttoning the top two buttons, he walked back into the hospital.

  The emergency room was the first section he walked through. People in chairs staring blankly at television screens. One woman was crying, and a man had his arm around her shoulders. The man glared at Stanton as he walked by.

  Next was the eye center, then cardiology, then nephrology… and finally the cafeteria. Stanton walked into the cafeteria and looked around. It appeared much like a high school cafeteria. Groups separated by empty benches. No one group interacting with another.

  A refrigerated area behind the cashiers held fruit, milk, sandwiches, and other small items that the staff could grab and eat without having to sit down. Stanton took a chocolate milk and went to pay for it. As he was standing in line, he glanced to the group of women behind him. One of them, ruffling through her purse, was Heidi Rousseau.

  She was in blue scrubs now but hadn’t lost any of the beauty Stanton had seen earlier. He turned away just a moment before she looked up. As he paid for his milk, he looked over to her and saw her speaking with one of her co-workers. They were discussing their weekend plans.

  Her voice wasn’t what he had pictured. When he looked at the photos for Alex Waters and Hugh Neal, he thought of their killer in a particular way. A caricature in his mind. Someone confident and daring, in control of every situation.

  Heidi twice dropped her credit card. As she leaned over her tray to reach a plastic container of salad, she got sauce from her lasagna on her scrubs.

  “Shit,” she said, grabbing a napkin and furiously wiping at the stain.

  Stanton paid and walked slowly to the tables, giving Heidi’s group enough time to pay. They sat at a circular table near the windows and he found a booth. He sat facing her and opened his milk. Leaning back, he slumped down and feigned being exhausted. As though he were a hospital administrator taking a much-needed break.

  Heidi didn’t speak much. The other women did most of the talking. They spoke about men, work, sex, and gossiped about what was going on in the hospital. Heidi would smile at the appropriate times and speak when she had to. But for the most part, she ate in silence and kept to herself. For some reason he couldn’t name, Stanton felt sorry for her.

  The women finished their meal about twenty minutes after they had sat down. Stanton watched Heidi place her tray in a stack of dirty dishes at the kitchen near the exit. She spoke softly to the kitchen staff for a moment, letting the rest of the women walk away. As she turned to leave, she noticed her shoelace was untied and she bent down and tied it.

  Stanton rose the second she was out of sight. He began a quick walk out of the hospital. He had to stop the takedown. Heidi was not the woman they were looking for.

  20

  Stanton rushed into the precinct and burst into Kai’s office. Kai was on the phone and held up his finger.

  “Yeah,” Kai said. “Yeah, I know… okay… well, how much is that gonna be? … okay… okay, fine.” He hung up. “Fucking government. They just take and take.” He leaned back in the seat. “Taxes, man. I owe ten grand from some property my wife bought back in ’82.”

  Stanton chose to stand and placed his hands on the back of a chair. “We need to cancel the takedown.”

  Kai leaned back, his prodigious belly hanging over the belt that was barely keeping his pants up. “Why?”

  “I don’t think it’s her.”

  “You don’t think? You said she was at both hotels when they died.”

  “Something’s not right. Maybe I was lied to by the escort agency or something. It’s not her, though. It can’t be.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause my gut says it’s not. Sometimes that’s all we have. I could be completely wrong but I don’t think so. If I am, then I haven’t learned anything in the past ten years. Or she’s more clever than any suspect I’ve ever had on a case.”

  Kai tapped his fingers against the desk. “What’chyu wanna do?”

  “Let me bring her in alone. She’ll come.”

  “Or she’ll lawyer up first and then leave the islands.”

  “I don’t think so. You should have seen this girl, Kai. She was insecure, klutzy, an outcast… not at all like the person that killed Waters and Neal should be. They should be brazen to the point of recklessness. Brave, sultry… not afraid of anything. That’s not Heidi Rousseau.”

  “Connor spent all day with Mike planning this.” He tapped his fingers a few more times and then exhaled loudly. “Nah, we gonna do it.”

  “Why? What’s the difference if I bring her in?”

  “If she as dangerous as you say, she could hurt you or someone else. I’m not takin’ that chance when we can take her down clean. No one’s gonna hurt her, don’t worry so much.”

  Stanton thought a moment. “She’s fragile. Detectives sticking a gun in her face and tackling her would be emotionally devastating to an introverted personality like hers. We’re talking about post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety—”

  “Bullshit,” Kai said in the same tone Stanton had taken. He chuckled. “She gonna be fine, Jon. Relax. You don’t wanna be there tomorrow, don’t come. We got three detectives and two officers there. You can hang out here, and we’ll bring her in for you.”

  Stanton removed his hands from the chair. “No, I’ll be there.”

  “Good.” He turned to his computer. “Shut the door when you leave.”

  Stanton got to the sidewalk in front of the precinct and stood, motionless. He knew why Kai didn’t want to cancel the takedown: the media had no doubt been contacted. This was a big press opportunity for the department. To show officers hauling in a suspected murderer who seemed elusive. Stanton fully expected a news van to happen by after they made the arrest.

  He sat in his jeep. A sensation of a cold lump of coal in his stomach wouldn’t leave him. Heidi was sensitive and insecure. And if it did turn out that she had nothing to do with these murders, it wouldn’t even matter. With her photo on every blog and news broadcast on the island, her life would be ruined.

  Stanton decided he wasn’t about to let that happen to a potentially innocent person. He checked the clock on his phone. One twenty-seven p.m.

  Driving back to the hospital, he listened to a Pandora station that had been recommended to him by the app. Gregorian chant. He could barely hear it in the din of Honolulu traffic, and it seemed incongruous with his surroundings anyway. He switched it to a Smiths station and listened to Morrissey’s deceptively melancholic voice. One that tricked people into thinking he was singing about something happy and uplifting, when his lyrics were dark and gloomy.

  When he got to the hospital, he parked in police parking.

/>   The same volunteer from this morning was still at the help desk. Stanton walked to her and stood there until she noticed him.

  “Can I help you?”

  “When does Dr. Heidi Rousseau get off?”

  “I’m sorry, do you know her?”

  “You told me this morning when she came in, I just need to know when she leaves.”

  The woman considered him, a perplexed look on her face. He realized she didn’t recognize him from the morning.

  He pulled out the badge and flashed it, glancing around to make sure Heidi wasn’t anywhere near. “What time, please?”

  “Well… what is this…? I don’t—”

  “Calm down, it’s okay. I just need to talk to her about something. It’s fine. No big deal. I need to know what time she gets off from her shift so we can speak.”

  “Well… you can go up there now.”

  “I’d prefer to talk to her after work.”

  She hesitated. “Okay, lemme see…” She went through the computer again, this time taking much more time. “Okay, I think this is it.”

  Stanton leaned over the counter and glanced to the screen. A master schedule for the entire hospital was up.

  “Scroll down, please,” he said. “Right there, thanks.”

  Heidi Rousseau’s shift ended at eight.

  “I appreciate that, thank you.”

  Stanton turned to leave. The woman was suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s. He wondered if she’d been diagnosed and was in treatment. Most elderly in this generation were predominantly alone. Forty years ago, the elderly were taken care of by their relatives in huge numbers. But there had been a cultural shift toward the nuclear family. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles were not part of that. Unless they had children that lived nearby and had a close relationship, most elderly were on their own.

  He looked back to the woman one more time. She was helping someone else. He turned and left.