Deceitful Moon

by Rick Murcer

  “She had the finest collection of underwear and lingerie I’ve ever seen,” said Chloe. “And Sophie thought no one would appreciate it more than you.”

  The room grew as silent as a morgue, then Max started to snicker. Chloe and Josh followed suit. Sophie covered her mouth with both hands and swiveled away from Alex.

  Manny felt his lips tremble, strangled his composure, and then it happened. He started to laugh, and then roared. Sophie fell out of her chair, clutching her stomach. The Feds lost it. like they were prompted by an unseen conductor..

  He watched as Alex’s lip began to quiver. The CSI dropped the panties, laying his forehead on the wooden table’s surface. Then he began to howl, his laughter louder than the rest.

  After a minute, Manny sent the tissue box around the table. Nothing like mass hysterics to create bonds.

  “Okay. I needed that,” said Alex.

  “We all did, I think,” agreed Manny. “Now, let’s get back to work.”

  “Before we do, I need to tell you that Argyle’s here and locked down in your county facility.”

  “That was fast, but the sooner the better.”

  “They put him on the basement level in isolation, still shackled, and guards at every exit and entrance.” Josh grinned. “We did the overkill thing because we’re the Feds and we can.”

  “Does he still want to talk to me?”

  “Don’t know. He still hasn’t said a word since he bit the ear off one of my agents in Miami.”

  “What a warped bitch,” said Alex.

  “We’ll worry about him later,” said Manny.

  He called Buzzy in, and she plopped down, wearing her customary pink, this time a skirt with two layers and enough jewelry to start her own store, smacking a large piece of fresh bubble gum.

  “What’d you find on Ross’s memory card?”

  “Let me just say first that I’m going to miss her. I didn’t know her too well, but she was always nice to me. I know you guys worked with her, so I feel your pain.”

  “Thanks, Buzzy. We’ll miss her too, but for now we need to find out who did this and why. So . . .”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay. I found lots of stuff. It wasn’t too hard to pull the numbers because there wasn’t much damage to the micro SD card. One of the other techs had a phone exactly like hers so I swapped ‘em out and said the magic words.”

  “What does ‘lots of stuff’ mean?” asked Manny.

  “I ran all of the phone numbers she’d called or that had called her against the report generated by the recovery software and eliminated the ones that had anything to do with the department. Then I got rid of any texting that didn’t need to be there. I cleaned up some other numbers, like to her family, and was left with nine numbers. They are probably pay-as-you-go jobs, so I started calling them.”

  “Won’t they know the call is from here?” asked Manny.

  “No, we swapped cards, remember? Anyway we got no answer on the first five. Here’s the weird part. I jumped to the last number called from her phone, the one at about 3:38 a.m., and the PDA you brought in from the White Kitty lady started to vibrate. And voilà, the number on that screen was the one I was calling from.”

  “So that proves the caller and Evelyn were linked,” said Josh.

  “Yep. But there’s one more thing . . . well, actually two more things.” Buzzy stood up, unable to conceal her excitement.

  “Easy girl. Pretend it’s the last frame, and you need a strike to hit the mystical 300 game,” said Manny.

  “You mean take a deep breath?”

  “I do.”

  “Got it. Whew! So I compared the next-to-last call, and it went to the same number, only about eight minutes earlier.”

  Manny shifted in his chair. Not caring for where this was headed. “So either the killer called twice—”

  “—or Ross knew Evelyn Kroll,” finished Sophie.

  “Say Manny’s right, and the killer called Kroll twice. Here’s the second thing, the phone Manny brought in from the alley, the one covered in rat spit—which I had to clean, thank you very much—had been used a few times in the last twelve hours. There were only three calls on that one. The first two were made yesterday. I tried them, and no one answered. But here’s the kicker, I recognized the third one. That one was made about 10:02 last night.” Buzzy lowered her eyes, then sat down. “That one went to Kroll’s phone too.”

  “Damn it.” Manny leaned back in his chair. “So Ross was part of this Justice Club thing?”

  “If not, she knew Evelyn and didn’t tell you,” said Josh. “That makes it a problem.”

  Manny’s gut twisted from one side to the other. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a damned duck. “She was involved. No doubt in my mind.”

  No one disagreed.

  “So Stella, Ross, and Evelyn were in this psycho Club. Is that all?” asked Sophie, her face as somber as Manny had ever seen.

  “We’ll know when we find her.”

  He turned to Buzzy. “I need you to do whatever it takes to ID those other numbers from both phones. Contact the carriers that issued them.”

  “Once you ID what companies assigned those numbers, tell them the FBI will subpoena all the records, if they have to,” said Josh. “Usually they want the warrant, but sometimes we get lucky.”

  Buzzy stood up and saluted. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Alex pushed his chair away. “Max and I’ve got a ton of shit to go through, including ballistics, fibers, blood types, particulates, and I’m hungry as hell, so I’m ordering out for breakfast and doughnuts.”

  Max followed Alex’s lead. “I heard that, and you’re buying.”

  “I like the breakfast idea, then we need to keep looking for Evelyn. We put the APB out for her, but she’s going to be hard to find,” said Josh.

  “Maybe not,” said Manny. “She may not know that we know she’s a Justice Club member.”

  “Unless that goon at the White Kitty got hold of her,” said Sophie. “You should have turned me loose on him.”

  “I don’t think he wants any trouble. I say he’s in the dark, at least some.”

  “You might be—”

  Buzzy’s yelling from outside the room interrupted Josh. “Hey, who are you? You can’t just go in there.”

  Two men dressed in black suits and ties entered the room.

  Manny recognized one of them from St. Thomas.

  “What are you two doing here? You should be at the jail watching Argyle,” said Josh, scowling.

  The one that Manny recognized spoke. “I don’t know how it happened, but—shit—Argyle’s gone.”

  “What the hell do you mean gone?” asked Manny grabbing the agent’s jacket with both hands.

  “He . . . ah . . . is not in his cell. He escaped.”

  Chapter-61

  Louise Williams fell into bed exhausted after putting Sampson outside. The dog loved to sleep on the deck in hot weather, and who could blame him?

  She’d stayed up late, waiting for Manny to call. He didn’t. She worried. Then, he finally called to check in. He said he would be home in the morning, and they’d talk. That was either a very good thing, or he was hiding something from her. She bet on the latter.

  She hated when Manny worked the all-night shift, and he did it far too often to suit her taste. He was a good man, but whipping that workaholic thing was never really going to happen. She knew that going in. He wasn’t going to be just her white knight; she was going to have to share him. She supposed there were worse things.

  At least tonight’s situation was understandable. All the local TV stations were ranting about the serial killer and the victims, and no way was Manny going to leave those investigations alone, not even for a minute. He’d die first. That thought made her stomach dance with butterflies.

  So damn noble.

  Before he’d left last night, she sent Jen, their daughter, to spend the night at her friend’s. That was no problem. Teenagers would always rather s
pend the night away than stay home anyway.

  It had been a busy night, like always, when he was working. She cleaned, washed, rearranged, got something to eat, and then back at it. No rest for the weary. She sighed, pulling the sheet around her neck. Or like her mother used to say, no rest for the wicked.

  Her eyes closed as she thought about what that really meant. She decided she preferred the weary adage.

  Louise turned to her side and was almost gone when she heard the ringing, then the barking. Both sounded far away, like a dream. Then both started again. She grasped it was the phone and Sampson. Her eyes blinked open and she thought about ignoring it, but realized it was probably Manny. Not to mention she’d better get the dog in before every neighbor on the block threw a hissy fit. But she was so tired.

  Finally, she reached for her robe, leaned out of bed, and shuffled to the phone.

  “Good morning, Louise. You’re looking as tasty as ever.”

  Louise Williams froze, clutched her chest, then turned to run. But getting away wasn’t in the cards.

  Argyle pulled her close and covered her face with the chloroform-laced cloth. His laugh haunted her mind as the world went dark.

  Chapter-62

  “She’s not answering,” said Manny, hanging up the phone. His heart resided somewhere near his ankles as he rushed out of the room.

  “Wait, I’m coming with you,” yelled Sophie.

  “Me too,” said Alex.

  Manny heard the scrape of chairs behind him, but it didn’t really register. He had to get home, now. Argyle escaping only meant one thing: he was going to finish what he started on the Ocean Duchess. His words echoed over and over in Manny’s mind as he raced down the steps and climbed into his SUV.

  I want you all to suffer the way I did, to walk a mile in my shoes.

  He reached to start the vehicle—and there were no keys. “Shit!’ He slammed his fist on the steering wheel just as the passenger door swung open.

  Sophie tossed him the keys. The engine roared to life, and he tore out of the parking garage, allowing a fast-moving Alex just enough time to shut the back door.

  “I’ll keep calling,” said Sophie, cell phone glued to her head.

  Manny nodded and said nothing. His thoughts raced to a Bible verse he memorized as a young man.

  God protects us from evil . . .

  He needed, prayed, the verse to be true this morning because Argyle was evil embodied. Maybe worse.

  Manny turned the corner of his street and saw lights flashing from three cop cars. He floored it again. The Feds had sent cars, but this didn’t feel good. The fact that no one had radioed him made his angst climb a higher wall.

  Pulling up in front, he leaped out of the truck and rushed headlong into the house, ignoring advice from the three Feds standing on the stoop. Their warnings raised his panic to a level he’d never experienced.

  What don’t they want me to see?

  He burst through the living room, past the kitchen, and ran squarely into one of Lansing’s finest, a woman officer named Molly Holt.

  “Molly, what’s going on; where’s Louise?”

  “Manny. We got here first. The front door was cracked open a few inches. We entered and secured the house and didn’t find anything . . . ah . . . until . . .”

  Her eyes darted to his chest than back to his face.

  His panic escalated. Then he started for the bedroom.

  “There’s no one in the bedroom, except your dog. He was howling like . . . well, you know the sound, so we put him in there and that seemed to calm him.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” said Manny.

  Sophie and Alex stood off to the side staring at their shoes.

  “There’s a body in the family room, behind the sofa. But Manny—”

  “A body?” He spun on his heels, feeling nothing and everything. Surreal didn’t cover it but neither did dread. His mind seemed to be trapped between reality and the unperceived, the impossible, and was in danger of staying that way.

  Not Louise. Please God, not Louise.

  The old familiar out-of-body encounter held his hand as Manny stepped through the arched doorway and onto the carpet, his eyes fixing immediately on the woman’s blood-smeared feet protruding from behind the burgundy sofa. From the back bedroom, Sampson let loose a spine-chilling howl.

  The four Feds moved out of his way, parting like the Red Sea at Moses’s command. He swallowed hard and took an unsteady pace toward hell on earth.

  What will I tell Jen? How will I explain to my daughter that my chosen profession had . . . had . . . ?

  One more step. He hesitated. If he took the next stride, his world would surely forever change. If he didn’t, insanity would embrace him and never let him go. The second option seemed better, safer. But he’d never worked that way. It was too late to change now.

  Sergeant Detective Manfred Williams took the next step.

  Chapter-63

  Josh stood in the dewy yard outside Manny’s home, his body language speaking volumes. The corpse inside the house sang a song Josh had hoped he’d never have to hear. It was bad enough this was happening to his good friend, more than bad, but to fly where Manny was flying right now was unthinkable. An image of his own wife came to him, and he shuddered.

  Turning to the agents, he spat questions at them fast and furious.

  “How in God’s name did this happen?”

  “We don’t know. He was there after one security check, and a half-hour later, he was just gone. His cell was open, and his shackles were lying on the bed. The door had no damage, like he had a key or something,” said Paul Pridemore, the agent in charge of Argyle’s transfer.

  Josh’s eyes narrowed. “A key?”

  The agent shrugged. “There was no evidence of tampering, of attempting to pick the lock. The door is old, but well kept. It’s like the damn thing just swung open for him.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “The one in his cell wasn’t being monitored because we were in the block so often. The other’s showed nothing.”

  “I’m lost here. Say I can buy into him somehow getting out of the restraints and even some brilliant scheme to get out of his cell. How in the hell did he get out of the facility?”

  “There’s an emergency door at the other end of the cell block and he just walked out.”

  “I told you to put guards at every exit and entrance.”

  “We did. One of the locals had that one covered.”

  “Damn it. Why didn’t the alarm go off?”

  Pridemore looked to the early morning sky. “It couldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “The county deputy said it has a manual switch and someone must have inadvertently turned it off.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. “The worst psychopath this city’s ever seen, and you don’t have your shit together. Unbelievable.”

  Chloe motioned for him to come with her. Her face grave, even for a special agent who’s seen a thing or two.

  “What?”

  “There’s something not right here.”

  “You think?”

  “That’s not what I meant. The time frame is messed up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She inhaled a controlled breath. “Say he got out of the cell and out the door within five minutes of the half-hour checks, and that’s being generous. The jail is five miles from here. So he would have had to steal a car. Assume he didn’t want to be seen in his orange jumpsuit, so a change of clothes was in order. Then get here to . . . to . . . do what he did and then leave. The first units arrived four minutes after the dispatcher call.”

  The way Chloe said what she said sent a fresh supply of dread to the very center of his bones. He looked up from the moist grass. “Not much time.”

  “Not only that, it’s 6:35 and getting lighter. This street has been canvassed by three teams of cops and agents. How come no one saw a car in front of the house?”

  “You know what you�
��re saying?”

  “Yes. I do. I think he had help. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If there was a car and clothes waiting for him, he would have gotten here at least fifteen minutes sooner, which would’ve given him time to pull this off and then hit the road, barely. And might explain why the emergency door’s alarm was off.”

  “Shit.” What Chloe said rang true the way those truths do when you try to ignore their incessant nagging.

  He frowned. “But how would his helper know when he was going to get out?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe they followed the wagon from the airport. Some previous plan? Hell, I don’t know.”

  “Police band radios could have picked up something, I suppose. Or the helper was a cop.”

  “Or that,” agreed Chloe.

  “Pridemore said it looked like maybe he had a key, or something. We need to—”

  Chloe elbowed him as Manny emerged from the front door. Head down, holding something in his hand. Josh caught the look in Chloe’s eyes, and he thought she was going to lose it. But then again, he wasn’t far from Heartbreak City either. In fact, he was at the check-in desk.

  This job does things to people, good people. Manny, and at an even higher level, Louise, doesn’t deserve this.

  Sophie and Alex were close behind Manny, both wearing puzzled, despondent looks. Max moved over from a group of agents and stood near as the three Lansing cops stopped in front of Josh, Manny turning the object in his hand over and over.

  “What can we do for you? Just name it,” said Josh, struggling to control his voice.

  Manny looked up. Remnants of tears stained his handsome face.

  Josh watched as Chloe fought to maintain her poise, losing the battle; Max cleared his throat and turned away. Josh felt the world crash around his shoulders, his mind screaming. Manny’s face softened. He put his hand on Josh’s shoulder and, with the other hand, held the object, a folded piece of paper, out to him.

  “It’s not Louise.”

  Chapter-64

  Argyle stepped on the accelerator of the year-old Chevy Corvette and quickly hit eighty. He hadn’t driven a vehicle like this in over six months, and the feeling was amazing. He reached ninety, and the mile markers on eastbound I-96 blurred past. At 120, he let off the gas and dropped to the speed limit. He’d hate to kill a cop this early in the morning, but it would make the day more interesting. Not as interesting a morning as Detective Williams and the rest of his clueless associates were experiencing right now, but a good one nonetheless.