“For this particular client, yes.” She got to her feet and went over to her desk, picking up scattered mail, bills and such. “It’s the only time he can squeeze our sessions into his schedule.”
“But this is a regular client, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You know him real well? You trust him?”
“What are you getting at?” That annoyed line showed between her eyebrows.
“Has it occurred to you that you might be on the killer’s list? I mean, shit, Gee—”
She smiled. She was too goddamned cocky for her own good, he thought.
“Get serious, Gee! Someone is killing your kinky friends and now somebody’s broken into your house.”
“You really think there’s a connection?”
“I dunno,” he said. “But I don’t like it.”
She said nothing for a moment.
“You’re overreacting. I don’t think . . .”
She stopped, looked at the papers in her hands, and then dropped them. She pawed through the other stuff on the desktop.
“What?”
She said nothing for a moment, then looked at him oddly.
“My day-planner is missing. Why would anyone take my day-planner? There’s nothing in there . . .”
“Nothing,” he said, “except your schedule.”
In the end, he helped her clean up, and they fell into bed sometime after two a.m. The issue of sex never even came up, because both were out almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow.
He didn’t mind. He hoped God would forgive him for being just a little bit happy about the break-in. He had been afraid she would send him home, alone and aching, to his empty bed.
It was frightening how quickly he had gotten used to having her back in his life, and he would have contentedly slept at the foot of her bed if she said that’s where he belonged.
Chapter 28
The end is the beginning of all things,
Suppressed and hidden,
Awaiting to be released through the rhythm
Of pain and pleasure.
—J
IDDU
K
RISHNAMURTI
“Y
our clients don’t come here, do they?”
“No. I keep a separate place.” Gina spooned up Special K and crunched. “It’s easier that way.”
“Safer, too.”
“Yeah, that’s true”—she shrugged—“but mainly I worry about drunks banging on the door at three in the morning. I’ve never had any real problems, just minor annoyances.”
“Like when they call you twenty times a day?”
“Hey.” She laughed. “Not
all
those calls are from him.”
Hanson wanted to ask who “he” was—badly—but knew he shouldn’t.
“So where
does
a hip young professional dominatrix keep a dungeon these days?” he asked instead, using humor to cover his discomfort.
“I have a studio loft in an old warehouse. It’s low-rent, mostly a lot of artists and musicians.”
“And nobody knows what you do there?”
She shrugged and carried the empty bowls to the sink.
“I don’t think anybody cares.”
“I really don’t think you should go alone,” he said, trying to sound like the very soul of reason.
“I may not carry a badge anymore, but I still carry a gun and I’m still a damned good shot.”
“You can’t always count on a gun to protect you.”
“Then I’ll have to rely on my good looks and kick-boxing skills.”
He followed her anyway. If she spotted him tailing her, she didn’t try to shake him. Hanson wondered what the starving artists and musicians made of her shiny BMW parked in front of the run-down building.
Hanson watched her go in. He sat there for a good five minutes, wondering if he should stay. Someone had stolen her day-planner, for Christ’s sake. What little crap they had pocketed could be just a smoke screen for their real prize.
Horses, Hanson,
he told himself.
Horses, not zebras. You’re just being paranoid.
He put the car in drive and headed for the office.
Griggs was already at his desk with a donut and huge cup of over-priced coffee.
“What? No donut for me?”
“Nah. I don’t bring extra donuts for guys getting premium ass while I’m jerking the chicken all by my lonesome.”
He told Griggs about the break-in at Gina’s.
“You think we oughta put some guys on her?”
“She’d kill you and me both. What about your theory that she’s the perp?”
“Well, you gotta admit, she’s got motive,” Griggs answered. “At least for Cassandra and Quinn—”
“Oh, come on—”
“But we got a solid lead now, and it was always a longshot that Gee was involved.”
“Nice that you admit it,” Hanson grunted.
“You think it could be our guy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like it. I’m hoping CSU found some prints.”
Hanson sat down and shuffled through reports, looking for the final on Quinn’s autopsy.
“It ain’t in yet,” Griggs said, reading his mind. “Miles got pretty pissy when I asked him ten minutes ago.”
They had preliminary results, but the final report might take days to be finished, waiting for final blood tests and such, before it was transcribed and signed-off on. There really wasn’t much else the final report would tell them, but harassing Miles was a favorite pastime.
The lieutenant appeared in the door of his office. He glared at them.
“Shouldn’t you two be out doing some kind of police work or something?”
“I was just about to call the DMV,” Hanson explained. “We’re looking for a white van that was seen in the area, maybe registered to a service company of some kind—”
“I’ll get some rookie to do that,” the lieutenant said. “Get out of here so I can tell Daubs I haven’t seen you.”
“Thanks.” Hanson stood quickly and grabbed his jacket.
“Don’t thank me,” the lieutenant said. “The sound of that bastard’s voice gives me a migraine, and I don’t need that shit this morning.”
“Come on,” Hanson said to Griggs. “Let’s go back to the Madison and see if we can find out anything about our mystery repairman.”
The day was heating up, and the air conditioner in the car didn’t seem to be blowing any cool air.
“You oughta get that fixed,” Griggs said. He drained the last of his giant coffee and threw the cup into the backseat.
“Do you have to be such a slob?”
“Yep. It’s in my job description. Gina too good to go slumming with us today?”
“You’re the one who keeps reminding me she’s not a cop anymore.”
“She’s kinda growing on me. Like mold. And she
is
sexier than you.”
The Madison was surprisingly busy for noon, but then they probably got a lot of lunch-hour quickies.
The motel manager, Mr. Patel, gave Hanson a blank look when he asked about a repairman.
“I do most of the work around here myself. If it is something I cannot fix, I will call someone, but I have not had anyone out in the last two months.”
He didn’t recall seeing anyone in dark blue coveralls, or a beat-up white van in the parking lot.
“I do not usually leave the office here,” Patel said. “Many of our customers are not very nice people.”
His wife and daughters had already cleaned the rooms on the morning of the murder, and spent the rest of that afternoon at the local mall.
They walked back across the broken asphalt of the parking lot to the car.
“I get the feeling that Daddy prefers they keep away from the guests,” Hanson said. “Can’t say that I’d want my teenage daughters wandering around here.”
“Every time we talk to that guy, I wanna start talking like Gandhi.”
Hanson’s phone vibrated against his chest. He dug it out and looked at the incoming number.
“Shit,” he groaned. “It’s Daubs.”
He flipped it open. Before he could even say hello, Daubs began to yell.
“Where the blazes
are
you? You’re
supposed
to keep me informed
daily
on this case!”
“We’re out working it, sir—”
He held the phone away from his ear while Daubs carried on with his usual administrative rant.
Griggs grinned and made yakking motions with his hand.
When Daubs paused, Hanson brought the phone back to his ear.
“Yes, sir . . . Yes, sir . . . I understand.”
He flipped the phone shut and put it back in his inside pocket.
“Are we in for an ass-chewing?” Griggs asked.
“Bright and early tomorrow morning. . . .
“All we gotta do,” he said with a grin, “is arrest somebody tonight. No problem.”
Chapter 29
In matters of sexuality we are at present, every one of us, ill or well, nothing but hypocrites.
—S
IGMUND
F
REUD
G
riggs didn’t ask why they were parked in front of the old warehouse. He didn’t even bitch about turning off the engine and the air conditioner.
The two of them watched as a young man came out of the building and walked up the block. He turned the corner and passed out of their view.
“He look familiar to you?” Griggs asked.
“It’s the kid we saw at the club.”
It was Gina’s admirer, the pretty boy toy with pierced nipples.
Damn it.
“Are you two spying on me, now?” Gina’s voice startled them both. She leaned into the open window, and she did not look happy.
“Just watching out for you,” Hanson muttered. “Sorry.”
“You got a boy toy, Gee?” Griggs grinned.
“Shut up, Griggs.”
“Was it him yesterday morning, too?” Hanson asked.
Damn it.
The question just popped out, and her icy glare told him she didn’t care for it at all.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Back to Cassandra Lee’s neighborhood.”
“Why? I thought the uniforms already canvassed the area?”
“Yeah, but there was no one home at the house directly behind Cassandra’s. Besides, we’ve got something specific to ask the neighbors now.”
“You wanna come along, Gee?” Griggs asked.
She hesitated for a moment, then got in the backseat.
“Your car gonna be okay in this neighborhood?” Hanson asked.
“It’ll be fine,” Gina muttered. “Just like me. Stop worrying.”
As it turned out, the resident of the house behind Cassandra’s—Hal Grooms—had been at his doctor’s that day. He was not happy to have missed all the commotion at the Lee house.
“I coulda told you some stuff about that woman! All those damned dogs. I couldn’t even go out onto my back porch if they were out in the yard! I had to take out my hearing aid just to get a little peace and quiet.
“They weren’t happy just tearing up her yard, oh no! The little devils kept trying to dig under the fence to get into
my
yard. Probably because they ran out of places to do their business. That woman never cleaned it up. Just let the doggy doo lie in the yard. When it rained, you could smell it from my back door. You’d think after thirty-four years driving a garbage truck, I’d have lost my sense of smell, but I just can’t abide the stink of doggy doo.”
“What about the neighbors on your street?” Hanson asked. “You see a lot of what goes on out in front of your house?”
“ ’Course I do. I’m retired.” Grooms kept stealing little glances at Gina, though he never spoke directly to her. Hanson wondered if he was reacting to her as a woman police officer, or just as a good-looking woman in his living room. “Ain’t got much to do but sit here and watch the History Channel and what goes on outside that big window.”
He complained about the “hoodlum kids” two houses down; he was sure they were the ones who kept dumping over his trash cans. The woman next door was having an affair; they should take a look at the sleazy guy she had over there whenever her husband was on the road in his eighteen-wheeler.
“But did you see a white van or a guy in a maintenance suit in the neighborhood about two weeks ago?” Griggs asked impatiently.
“No, not a white van,” Grooms grunted, not even pausing. “There was a black one, though.”
The hairs on the back of Hanson’s neck stood up.
“A black van?” Hanson repeated.
“I ain’t color blind,” Grooms grumbled. “I can tell the difference between black and white. Lousy paint job, too. Idiot had spray-painted the whole thing, like he was too stupid to know that ain’t a proper way to paint a vehicle.”
“Did you get a look at the license plate?” Griggs asked.
“I was going to. Moron was parked in front of my mailbox. Mailman won’t stop if someone’s blocking the box, too damned lazy to get out of his little truck—”
“I’m sure that’s a great inconvenience,” Hanson said, trying to pacify the old man. “So why didn’t you—”
“ ’Cause I’m an old man with an irritable bowel! When I come out of the john, the van was gone. And good riddance to it.”
“Did you see who was driving it?”
“Nah. If I’d seen him, I’d have given him a piece of my mind, bowel movement be damned.”
They listened to another round of Mr. Grooms’s complaints and observations about his neighbors until they were sure he had nothing more of value to add. Hanson almost regretting leaving his card behind, sure that he’d be getting calls about trash cans and drug trafficking neighbors for months to come.
“A quickie paint job,” Gina said as they walked back to the car. “After the first two murders, he was getting worried someone might have seen him.”
“Or he’s just being careful,” Griggs said. “If Grooms weren’t such an asshole, we might never have made the connection.”
“Let’s hope the bastard doesn’t decide to change vehicles completely,” Gina said. “That van is the only real lead we’ve got.”