Where the Truth Lives

by Mia Sheridan

  Good, Reed thought. Christ, the lives people had to live. Sometimes he felt so fucking sad about the state of the world, it felt like it was eating away his insides. And all he was doing was taking in the information. This man had lived it. “Your life got better,” he said. “Living with your half-sister.”

  Milo nodded, swallowed. “Yeah. There was no half about it. Yolanda and Troy saved me. I made a life for myself because of them, outran my demons.” He paused, meeting Reed’s eyes. “I realize Margo was murdered by a psycho, but I can tell you this, I’m not at all sorry that bitch is dead. I hope she’s burning in hell.”

  Reed couldn’t blame him. Not at all. He thanked Milo for his time and walked back down the path toward his car.

  Margo Whiting was Milo Ortiz’s mother. This absolutely could not be a coincidence. Reed felt antsy with the excitement of another connection that might lead them forward. He wished he was at the office right that moment and could stand before the board and look at the information all at once.

  When he got to the curb, he noticed Milo’s trash was sitting out waiting for the garbage men. He took a moment to lean his head around the cans and saw the recycling bin, filled to the top with empty alcohol bottles.

  He wondered if the man had recently had a party. But Reed had a feeling it was something else. He had a feeling Milo was still outrunning those demons he’d mentioned.

  But not by much.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Reed looked up as Jennifer slid the chair out on the other side of the table where he was sitting and sat down with a short huff.

  “Hey. Thanks for meeting me here.”

  “We do have to eat once in a while,” she said, smiling.

  He pushed his empty plate aside. “Sorry I didn’t wait, but I was starved.” That was true, but he’d also needed to get out of that office. He felt like he’d been living there the past few days, arriving early, and staying far too late.

  “Nah, you’re good. I didn’t know how long I’d be.” She removed her jacket and twisted around, hanging it on the back of her chair. “There’s so much cross-referencing to do. The few names we have from the halfway house, plus now family members of the victims. I still can’t find anything that connects our eyeless victims except that they were dirtbags, may they rest in peace.” She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “I’m tied to the computer too. Plus, they have me running around checking out information coming in from tipsters, even the ones that are obviously phony. I wish they’d bring charges on those fools. Wasting our time that way.”

  “Me too,” Reed agreed. “Usually there’s no way to prove they’re making shit up though.”

  Jennifer sighed. “Yep.”

  Ransom had had a family gathering that he’d taken the day off for. He’d offered to skip the function and come in anyway, but Reed had urged him not to. Eating, sleeping, and breathing the case wasn’t helpful for anyone. He had to remind himself of that too, but Ransom had a wife who deserved to see her husband now and again.

  The server showed up and took Jennifer’s order, refilling Reed’s coffee cup and pouring Jennifer a cup as well.

  “It feels weird,” Jennifer noted, adding sugar to her coffee. “A cluster of killings, and now almost a week with . . . nada.” She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee. “I’m not complaining, but it feels off. These guys, they don’t just stop.”

  Reed had been thinking the same thing and he nodded in agreement. Although he couldn’t help thinking of his own father. In essence, he had just . . . stopped. Bellum finivit. The words flashed in his mind, causing his stomach to roll. The war is over. He’d waged his final battle, and from all accounts, ended the war for good.

  “Although,” Jennifer went on, “I suppose it does happen. Remember that rash of female sex workers who were going missing over a ten-year period, starting twenty years ago or so? I was just a kid and I remember it.” She took a sip of her coffee, setting it down and bringing her hands up, and splaying her fingers in a poof movement. “Then, nothing. That guy apparently moved on. Or died. Who knows.”

  “It does happen, but I have a feeling we’re not going to get that lucky.”

  “You and me both.” Jennifer drummed her fingers on the table. “I’ve been looking into that dude who jumped off the overpass. The possibly homeless one? Without an ID, it’s a dead end. No pun intended.” She drummed her fingers again. “But I don’t know, I’ve got this feeling that if we could figure out his identity, a few more things might fall into place. Maybe some kind of plan or”—she looked off to the side as if searching for the right word—“reason . . . would become clear.”

  “Playbook?”

  She tipped her head. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good word. There’s some specific order that I can’t figure out. But if we could, I think we could get a jump on this guy.” Her face contorted. “God, the puns just write themselves,” she muttered. “What I mean is, maybe we could save somebody’s eyeballs, and their life.”

  Reed gave her a wry grimace. “We do have a few connections to work with now though,” he said, thinking. They had it all laid out on the boards in the incident room and he’d stared at them for what felt like hours on end, but sometimes it was good to get away from that, away from the room where the same ideas had been gone over and over with no real results. Sometimes a fresh environment brought fresh ideas.

  “Milo Ortiz, the man who found Toby Resnick, has no connection to him that we can ascertain. But he does have a connection to another victim, Margo Whiting, who fell to her death. Elizabeth Nolan does have a connection to Steven Sadowski who she works with, and also to a falling victim, her brother, Julian Nolan. It’s like there are all these connections, but none of them have any meaning.”

  The server approached their table, breaking Reed’s concentration for a moment. She slid Jennifer’s club sandwich in front of her, asked if they needed anything else, and when they replied no, turned and left. Jennifer took the toothpick out of her sandwich and picked up half, nodding at Reed to go on. “Sadowski was left in the hospital where he worked. Toby Resnick was left in an alleyway in the same neighborhood where he lived and conducted his shady business dealings. But the third eyeless victim, Clifford Schlomer who ran the payday loan business was left in a location nowhere near where he lived or worked.”

  Jennifer nodded, wiping her mouth before she spoke. “The parking garage downtown.”

  Reed nodded, picturing the man slumped in the corner behind the painter’s car. What was her name? Sabrina McPhee.

  It’s like he was left there just for me.

  “What do we have on Sabrina McPhee?” he asked.

  Jennifer paused. “The painter who found Clifford Schlomer, the payday loan dude, in that garage?” She looked to the side, thinking. “I did a basic check. She owns an art studio near her apartment. Relatively successful. Was married and divorced once. Seemed like an amicable enough split from what I saw on paper. No shared property, no kids. She has good credit, no record. Nothing stood out.”

  Reed felt a small buzz of something rise from his gut to his chest. “Okay. Think about this. Steven Sadowski was left in a location where Elizabeth Nolan was the likeliest one to find him. She reported that she takes that stairway every morning at the same time, and the body was placed there directly before she arrived. Same with Milo Ortiz. He was on his regular work route. The body of Toby Resnick was left in a location where he was the likeliest to find him.”

  Jennifer nodded, bringing her sandwich from her mouth where she’d been about to take a bite and lowering it to her plate. “But Elizabeth Nolan knew Steven Sadowski, and Milo Ortiz did not know Toby Resnick.”

  Reed brought his top teeth over his bottom lip as he glanced away for a moment. “Okay. Let’s assume for the moment that Elizabeth Nolan knowing Steven Sadowski is a coincidence or . . . happenstance based on where they both worked.”

  Jennifer looked dubious. “Okay.”

  “Just for now,” Reed said.
“And then Clifford Schlomer who was found in the parking garage, was left in a location, and at a time, where the likeliest one to find him was Sabrina McPhee. So,” he went on, “if those three victims were not left in random locations, they were left in places where those specific people would find them first. They were placed strategically—”

  “Which would mean,” Jennifer said excitedly, “that it’s not only the victims who are important to this guy, but the ones who find them as well.” She sat back in her chair. “Holy shit,” she said. “The discoverers of the bodies are not random. Okay, maybe, yeah.”

  “But why?” Reed murmured. His heart rate had increased and his skin felt sort of prickly from underneath. If they were on the right track, it meant Liza was important to this killer. He’d already questioned that based on her brother’s murder, but not to this extent. He’d assumed the killer had targeted her brother based on Liza’s random role in the crime. She’d somehow . . . come under his sick scrutiny. But perhaps her role in the crime was not random at all. Just like it didn’t appear Milo Ortiz’s role was random either.

  Reed looked off behind Jennifer for a moment. “There’s another victim attached to two of the discoverers: Milo, whose mom was a falling victim, and Liza, whose brother suffered the same fate.”

  Jennifer nodded. “Might it stand to reason then, that the John Doe with the brand who fell from the overpass is connected somehow to the third discoverer, Sabrina McPhee?”

  “Bingo,” Reed said quietly. “Which is why we need to get all the information we can on Sabrina.”

  “It’s all twisted together somehow. Did the killer pose the victims for them? As some sort of sign or . . . message or . . . whatever? Did he kill people who’d caused them to suffer? And if so, why? What’s in it for him?”

  Reed shook his head, at a loss. “Both Elizabeth Nolan and Milo Ortiz had really bad childhoods,” he said. “That’s a link between them. Although, the people who caused them some of their suffering are the ones pushed to their deaths.” He’d shown Liza a picture of the enucleated victims, similar to Sadowski, the one she’d discovered, in an attempt to find a link there, but she hadn’t recognized either of them. He hadn’t shown her a photo of Milo Ortiz or Sabrina McPhee because their role had appeared to be nothing but chance at the time. But now . . . he needed to get their photographs in front of her.

  “I’ll look more into Sabrina McPhee’s background,” Jennifer said. “See if I can find some more specific links or similarities. See if there’s anyone from her past who caused her pain or suffering. Maybe that will help identify John Doe.”

  Reed nodded. “Her studio’s pretty close by. I’ll stop by after I leave here and question her further and show her some photos.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll give Milo Ortiz a call, too,” Reed said, “and question him about Elizabeth and Sabrina.”

  “Sounds good.” Jennifer took a big bite of her sandwich, and Reed finished off the last of his cold coffee. He picked up the check and started gathering his things. “Thanks again for meeting me here.”

  She nodded up at him. “I’ll call you later.”

  **********

  As Reed walked back to the office to pick up his car, he went back over what he and Jennifer had talked about. He had this feeling they’d just had a breakthrough, but goddamn it, there were still too many missing pieces.

  His cell phone rang, breaking him from his thoughts and he took his phone from his pocket, glancing at the screen but not recognizing the number. “Hello?”

  “Detective Davies?”

  Reed stepped to the side of the sidewalk, using his finger to press on his other ear to better block out the city traffic. He recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. “Yes?”

  “This is Gordon Draper. We met several weeks ago at my home—”

  “Ah, yes. Hello, Mr. Draper. How are you?” Reed asked, recalling his meeting with the wheelchair-bound former Lakeside director.

  “Very well, thank you.” He paused. “I’ve been watching your case on the news. It’s all very disturbing, isn’t it? This Hollow-Eyed Killer?”

  “Very,” he agreed, wondering what the old man was calling about.

  “I saw the photograph of the victim that was in the news. Dreadful, of course. I was afraid I’d have nightmares after I saw it. I don’t know why those news people think it’s okay to splash that sort of thing all over the television.” He paused. “Anyway, something about the image was familiar and I couldn’t put my finger on it right away, but this morning, I did, and I hope you don’t mind me calling you. It might be nothing, of course—”

  “I don’t mind you calling at all, Mr. Draper,” Reed said, trying to be patient. “I appreciate it. What was familiar to you?”

  “Well, funny enough, the image of that man . . . the black, dripping eyes, it made me think of a comic book.”

  “A comic book?” Down the street a car horn blared and he turned briefly in that direction.

  “Yes. My grandson Everett loved comics. I . . . donated his things, so I don’t have any of that particular one around here anymore, but I remember it. I remember that image.”

  A comic book? Reed wasn’t sure what to think. “Do you remember the name?”

  “Yes, it’s a series called Tribulation. If I once knew the storyline, I’m afraid I can’t recall it now.” He let out a brief chuckle. “Lucky thing I remembered the title. There are a few comic book stores in the city that might sell copies if you think it’s worth looking into.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Draper. I’ll definitely do that.”

  “Good, yes. Again, it might be nothing more than the flawed memory of an old man but . . . you never know.”

  Reed said his goodbyes, thanking Mr. Draper again. He wasn’t sure what to make of the call but he’d check it out right after he visited Sabrina McPhee.

  Tribulation. Interesting. Reed walked the two remaining blocks to his office building, retrieving his car from the lot and googling the address of the art gallery. It only took him ten minutes to drive there, and find a parking space a block away.

  He walked toward the building on the corner that had Sabrina’s name in black block print on the glass front door. Once in front of it, though, he saw that the lights were off. Frowning, he leaned forward, shielding the light over his eyes so he could see inside better. The door opened up into what was essentially a walkway, with two large white walls on either side. Canvases hung on those walls and as Reed’s gaze moved over the art, a chill raced under his skin. The first word that came to Reed’s mind was hellish. They each featured different color iterations of a similar topic: hands reaching up from the depths of a fiery pit, into an empty sky. As he looked more closely at the pit, he could see screaming faces barely discernible through the smoke and ash.

  “So that’s creepy,” he murmured, leaning away. Jennifer had mentioned Sabrina McPhee was moderately successful. And the fact that she paid rent on her own studio spoke of that. He hadn’t known there was a market for stills of horror movies. Then again, was he really surprised? Despite his own lack of appreciation for the subject, he could admit she was talented. Maybe this wasn’t all she painted. He couldn’t see around any of the corners inside.

  It appeared that the studio was closed, but he knocked anyway, waiting for a minute, and then turning away. When he got back to his car, he got her number from his case file, and dialed it, leaving a message on her voicemail when she didn’t answer.

  Reed sat there for a minute, allowing his mind to swirl, but when that produced nothing except a deeper throb of a headache, he breathed out a frustrated sigh, and dialed Milo Ortiz’s number. He, too, didn’t answer, and Reed left a message for him as well.

  He was about to start up his car, when he remembered Gordon Draper’s call. He glanced at the time on his radio. Six fifteen. Probably too late to drive over to a comic book store. Still . . . something pricked at him, telling him it was worthwhile to at least look into it.

&
nbsp; He pulled up his phone and did a search for Tribulation, and found information about the writer of the comic—now deceased—and a few lines that talked about how the plot loosely referenced the biblical Great Tribulation, a summary of the events leading to the end of days, but overall, there seemed to be a limited amount of information online.

  Reed exited out of the page he was on, and looked up comic book stores nearby, calling the closest one on the list. To his surprise, a man picked up the phone. “Avalon Comics and Cards.”

  Reed explained what he was looking for.

  “Tribulation?” he repeated. “Yeah, it’s obscure. I might have a few editions, but not the full set. You’d have to go online for that. They’re out of print and not cheap.”

  “Any chance I could drive over and take a look at what you have? I could be there in ten.”

  “Not tonight, sorry. I’ve got the whole place shut down, and I’m just about to lock up. Also, it would take me a little time to dig around for them. What about in the morning, after nine?”

  Reed sighed, feeling like he was striking out everywhere. But, fuck, he was tired, and he needed to rest his mind if he was going to be sharp tomorrow. “That works,” Reed said. “I’ll be by after nine. My name’s Detective Reed Davies.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll pull what I have first thing. See you then.”

  Reed hung up and started his car, pulling away from the curb.

  The only thing that was going to resurrect this shitstorm of a day was that he was going home to Liza.

  Just don’t get too used to it, he warned himself. It isn’t permanent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Liza startled as a car backfired somewhere down the street and broke her from her wandering thoughts. She switched the three grocery bags she was carrying to her other hand and turned the corner onto Reed’s street.

  The man was intelligent and competent, but he couldn’t keep house to save his life. She’d vowed never, ever, ever to cook or clean for any man again, but she found that she wanted to care for Reed, to grab groceries, even make a meal, straighten a few things that he’d left messy on his way out the door before she’d gotten out of bed . . .