by John Moralee
*
The hospital kept me in overnight for observation, but they released me the next morning. Sapphire was waiting. We took a taxi back home. I needed a shower and some decent food after my night in the hospital, so we said goodbye at my door.
“Oh, I’ve got a surprise for you when you’re ready,” she told me. “Come up after you’re dressed.”
*
I went up about half an hour later. She had put romantic candles everywhere, but that wasn’t her surprise. She was standing next to an easel with a canvas on it with a sheet over it. She told me to stand in front of it before unveiling her picture.
“I hope you like it,” she said, whipping off the sheet, revealing a picture of me as a knight in shining armour sitting on a horse. “Ta-da! What do you think?”
It was terrible. It looked like something painted by a two-year-old with no talent.
“I’m a knight in shining armour,” I said, which avoided telling a lie.
“I was inspired by your name. You really like it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Again – not technically a lie.
“I’ll open a bottle of wine,” she said.
She left my staring at her painting. The longer I looked at it the worse I thought it was. In advertising I dealt with truly talented commercial artists that could produce outstanding work. Sapphire was not one of them.
“You can put it in your flat!” she called out.
“Great!” I said.
Over my dead body, I thought. I turned away from it because it was physically hurting my eyes. Instead I looked at the photographs she had done of Brighton. At least they were pretty good. I stared at the one over her mantelpiece – the one of the promenade and the pier. In the distance you could see tiny figures on the beach. When I looked closely, I saw one was holding a metal detector.
“What are you looking at?” Sapphire said. She was standing right behind me.
“Just the sunrise,” I said, turning to face her with a smile plastered on my face.
But she had realised what I had seen. She wasn’t smiling. “I should have taken that down. You weren’t meant to notice that.”
“Notice what?” I said innocently, but it was too late. She knew I had figured out that she had planted the iron poker on the beach so it would be found. She looked disappointed. There were tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t want to kill Anne,” she said. “It just happened.”
“What happened?” I said, hoping to get her talking while I figured out what to do.
“We were friends so I did her portrait, which I gave to her as a gift. The night she died I went to dinner with her expecting her to have hung it up somewhere nice. But she hadn’t put it up anywhere. She told me she hadn’t got around to hanging it – but I could tell she was lying. She’d had it for a week! She hated it. She didn’t want it on her precious walls. She suggested it would be better if I looked after it for her - like I was too dumb to figure out what she was really thinking. She tried giving it back because she didn’t want it. But I didn’t want the stupid thing if she thought it was rubbish. So I threw it in her fire. I wanted to watch it burn – but she tried to stop me. I lashed out with the poker. I killed her. I didn’t mean to do it – but then that idiot showed up to fix her shower. I had to take care of him, too. I got rid of his body and planted the iron poker to make the police think he had killed her – but I had to alter my plan when his body washed up. Luckily I had already planted her underwear in Ben’s flat in case I needed a second suspect. I invited him up to my flat to make it look like he had attacked me. He was supposed to die as soon as I stabbed him, but I missed his heart. He managed to get away. But then you stopped him for me. Tristram, I think that was fate. You and I are meant to be together. Now the police have closed their investigation. Can you forget about what I did?”
There was hope and madness in her eyes.
“Not if it means hanging up that lousy picture in my flat,” I said.
She screamed in rage and swung the wine bottle at me – but I had already picked up the nearest sharp object - her poker. The next thing I knew I was bringing it down on her head. She fell to her knees, blood streaming down her face. But she clawed at me like a tiger. So I hit her again. That stopped her for good. I dropped the poker beside her body and put my hands on my knees as I struggled for breath.
Sapphire’s dead eyes stared up at me.
“Oh my God!” Norman said. He was standing at the doorway. What was he doing standing at the doorway? He looked like a deer caught in headlights. I could see him seeing me, blood on my face, blood on my hands. And I knew what he was thinking. This was bad advertising. His mouth opened and closed and a noise like a dog whimpering came out of his gritted teeth. “When I heard the noise …”
“Norman –”
He turned and dashed down the stairs. I swore. He would tell the police he’d seen me kill Sapphire.
Unless I stopped him.
Unless I killed him to shut him up.
There was no choice.
I was in advertising.
He just sold books.
I picked up the poker and ran after him.
Patriotic Duty
Since Hurricane Katrina, Detective Cade Lambert had seen many terrible things in New Orleans – but he had never seen anything as horrific as the headless body found in the condemned house.
The victim was a naked white man tied to a kitchen chair in the middle of a flood-damaged living room. From his rat-chewed toes to his missing head he had signs of torture – cuts, burns, bruises. Someone had cut off his fingers while he was probably alive. They had also used a shotgun to blow off his head – leaving just a bloody stump being feasted on by maggots and flies. His brains and skull fragments had sprayed the mouldy ceiling like a gruesome Rorschach pattern with only one meaning: someone had not wanted his corpse identified.
Cade and his partner Detective Gail McKane had been led to the crime scene by a reluctant teenager, who had been caught by a teacher at his high school showing video footage of the body to his friends. The boy had found the corpse over a week ago after sneaking into a boarded-up house – but he had decided to film it on his phone instead of calling 911. He was now in a squad car outside.
Before Katrina the house had been in a wealthy mixed-race suburban neighbourhood. Now everything looked like a war zone. FEMA had not spent a dime there, making it the perfect place to torture a man and leave his body.
Until the boy found it.
It was a bright summer day outside, but it was cave-dark inside the house because no sunlight sneaked through the boarded windows, forcing Cade and Gail to use their flashlights to see their way. Their beams made rats and cockroaches scurry into the darkness. The humid air smelled of rancid meat and rotten garbage, making Cade wish he had not just eaten a large breakfast. His hand touched the butt of his gun just to reassure him it was still there, even though he had already cleared each room in the four-bedroom home. He studied the body from all angles.
He estimated the man had been in good physical shape before he was tortured and killed. With his head, he would have been about six-four.
“Who are you?” he said to himself.
“Victim’s got prison tats,” Gail said. Her long, ash-blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail to prevent her hair contaminating the crime scene. Like Cade, she was dressed in a dark suit with plastic booties over her shoes and latex gloves. She was covering her mouth with a mask as she shone light on the man’s muscular right arm, where he had a swastika and other tattoos. “And he was a member of the Aryan Nation. Maybe he got what he deserved?”
“Don’t think anyone deserves this,” Cade said. “Not even a racist ex-con. He got worked over seriously. His torturer really wanted some information bad.”
“Or just enjoyed hurting him?” she said. She stepped away from the body slowly, being careful not to disturb evidence before the Crime Scene Unit arrived. She shone her flashlight around at
the walls, noticing something. “Hey – check out this.”
Graffiti covered the walls. It was possible the killer had done it. Cade snapped photos on his digital camera. He uploaded them to the anti-gang task force, which kept a database of gang art. A detective called him back after receiving the pictures.
“They’re G-Street Posse tags. They like selling meth and guns. Looks like your white guy got captured by the wrong black guys. He was probably selling on their turf. That help?”
“Yeah,” Cade said. “Thanks.”
He looked at Gale. He’d had his phone on speaker. “Did you hear that?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll call my CI.”
She went outside to make the call. Cade stayed a couple of minutes longer, taking pictures of the room and body, then he followed her outside. He breathed in the clean air and relished the hot sun. He could see the forensics van slowly coming up the potholed road, which had become overgrown with weeds since Katrina.
Gail was standing nearby talking to her CI. She had shaken her hair loose, letting it fall in glossy waves on her shoulders like a model in a shampoo commercial. For a minute Cade distractedly thought about how good she looked with her hair down. Hell – she looked good even with it drawn back in a ponytail.
In January Cade had slept with Gail after they found out their spouses were cheating. Though they had enjoyed it, they had never repeated the experience, much to Cade’s regret. Neither of them had been ready for a serious relationship at the time. But now – five months later – their divorces completed – Cade still had feelings for her. The trouble was, he didn’t know if she felt the same way. If he told her the truth and she didn’t want a relationship, they would have to stop being partners. And even if she did feel the same way, they would have to keep it a secret from the NOPD or transfer to other departments, though they both loved working for Homicide. Cade didn’t know what to do.
Gail slammed her phone shut. “Damn it! He won’t talk on the phone. I arranged a meeting in an hour. It’s better if I go alone. My CI is real jumpy.”
“Okay,” Cade said. “I’ll wait here until they move the body. See you later.”
She drove off in her black car. Cade walked towards the forensics van as it parked on the street near the house. Two men and a woman exited. He knew them well. Cade shook hands with the CSU team before they went inside. A few minutes later another vehicle drove up the road – a BMW. Its driver was the medical examiner. She was a tall black woman with red-dyed hair called Dr Vanessa Hart. She went into the house without reacting to the smell or the gruesome sight – apart from making a joke: “Well, I bet he’s got one hell of a headache.”
Cade wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “How long’s he been dead?”
“Two to three weeks, judging by the decomp. I can’t be more accurate.”
The CSU were already collecting evidence. Cade knew they wouldn’t miss a thing. He hoped they’d find prints and DNA.
When Dr Hart allowed the body’s removal, Cade went to the morgue to make sure someone would start the autopsy as soon as possible. He hated the morgue, but he stayed there until a pathologist started working. He watched the man collect a DNA sample from the victim to be sent to the lab, but the results would not come back for a day or two. Then Cade took a coffee break while reading a report on gang activity. He was drinking his second cup when Gail returned.
“My CI says he’s heard nothing about a killing. I showed him the graffiti, which he says looks amateur, like someone did it to make it look like the G-Street Posse was involved. He says they always sign their tags. There was no signature – which makes very likely to be fake.”
“Fake? Are you sure he’s telling the truth?”
“My guy’s brother died because he was in the gang. He hates the G-Street Posse. He wouldn’t protect them. He’s always been reliable in the past.”
“So someone wanted us to think they were responsible. Who stands to benefit if we cracked down on the G-Street Posse?”
“That’s simple: the Aryans. They’ve been trying to take over the drug and gun business.”
He frowned. “Why would they torture and kill one of their own?”
Gail shrugged. “Who knows? They’re animals. Morality isn’t exactly their strong point.”
They went to the morgue, where they learnt surprising information.
The pathologist had been preparing the body when he discovered the victim’s tattoos were not real.
“Someone drew his tattoos on with a pen,” the man told Cade and Gail. “They did an excellent job, but they started to wash off when I began the autopsy. Someone drew on the racist ink and prison tats, maybe to fool us.”
“No, not us,” Cade said. “Them.”
*
From his desk in Robbery/Homicide, Cade made some calls to other police departments, the DEA, the FBI and the ATF asking if they had lost contact with any undercover agents.
They all responded negatively.
Unless they were lying to cover their asses, the man pretending to be a neo-Nazi ex-con wasn’t one of their men.
“Then who the hell was he?” he wondered aloud.
*
Three hours later Cade got a call from the pathologist, who had completed the autopsy.
“Good news - I found a bullet wound in his leg. An old wound. The bullet shattered his femur. It was repaired with a metal plate with an ID number. The patient’s name was Davis Lando.”
Cade sat at his computer and typed in the name. Information appeared:
Davis Lando was from New York. He was thirty-two and 6’4. He had joined the US Army after 9/11. He saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earned a dozen commendations. He was part of a Special Ops unit whose missions were classified. In 2008 he was shot in the line of duty, resulting in an Honourable Discharge and a string of medals. Since becoming a civilian he had been employed as a security guard. He had no criminal record.
“The guy’s a hero,” Gail said, reading over his shoulder. “What’s he doing getting his head blown off in New Orleans?”
Cade contacted an NYPD detective and explained the situation. The detective promised to look into it for him and call him back ASAP.
ASAP turned out to be four hours later. The detective had spoken to Davis Lando’s family, learning that he had been living with his girlfriend Amanda until three weeks ago, when he had told her that he been offered a security job on an oil rig for a couple of months. David told her he would not be able to contact her when he was on the rig – but she could call his friend who lived in Louisiana if she needed to pass on any messages. The company giving him the job was called Gulf Oil Total Security.
“I checked with them,” the detective told Cade. “And it’s a real company. But they never hired David Lando. They never even heard of him.”
“What was the name of the friend?”
“Colonel Jeff Ryker. He was Lando’s commanding officer. Retired in 2005.”
*
US Army Colonel Jeff Ryker (retired) lived between New Orleans and Lafayette in an area known as Cajun Country. To get there, Cade and Gail drove for miles and miles through small towns and swampland guided by their GPS, which only took them so far before a real map was required. Mosquitoes splattered their windshield. The colonel’s home was along a rough dirt road that ended at a wooden house built on stilts upon the murky green waters of a bayou. The colonel must have heard them coming because he was standing on his porch with a shotgun casually slung over his shoulder, watching their approach. The colonel was in his early sixties but his body was trim, his arms thick from working out. His greying hair was cut short, military-style. He was wearing a black T-shirt, camouflage pants and combat boots – the Army equivalent of a civilian’s sweatpants.
“Shotgun,” Gail muttered.
“I see it. Let’s stay calm unless he looks like he’s gonna use it.”
The weapon was no threat as long as it wasn’t aimed, but it did make the colonel an intimidating presence. Cade wond
ered if it had been the shotgun used to kill David Lando, but he also knew that – unlike with handguns – there was no test to prove a particular shotgun was used for the murder.
Cade unclipped his Glock, but he didn’t take it out. As long as the the colonel wasn’t threatening them with it he didn’t see a reason to draw. He slowed down his vehicle and parked it next to a 2011 silver-grey SUV. He opened his door and stepped out.
“Colonel Ryker?”
“Yes,” he said warily. His eyes were hard grey bullets. “Can I help you folks?”
“I’m Detective Lambert. This is Detective McKane. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Got some ID?”
Cade and Gail showed their shields.
“NOPD? Little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”
