The Midtown Murderer (10 page)

Chapter 25

Butler swung the door open and Priest
and Clay filed in behind him. The war party took seats around the table, and they stared at Trent with an assortment of wary expressions.

McClure set a miniature tape recorder on the table and pressed the
RECORD button. He checked that the tape was turning and spoke the date and time, where they were, and who was in the room. Then he rubbed his clean-cut neck and waited.

“I know my constitutional rights,”
Trent said angrily. “I want a lawyer; even then I might not talk.”

Clay spoke through clenched teeth. “You haven’t been charged.”

“I’m leaving right now,” Trent said stubbornly.

“Don’t be obstinate, Palmer,” Clay said, “or I’ll arrest you on suspicion of capital murder and put you behind bars.”

Trent held up his handcuffed wrists. “I want these off.”

After a brief silence Clay nodded at Priest. He stood over Trent and
turned the key in the handcuff locks.

“
Is this a formal inquiry?” Trent said.

“Of course not
,” McClure said with a smile that said they were all buddies. “Just an unofficial interview among professionals.”

“
Radcliff read me my rights,” Trent said, rubbing the red welts on his wrists.

Clay removed his wire-framed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He nodded at McClure and said, “That was a formality.”

McClure led the inquisition. First he opened a leather-bound notebook at a page marked by a glossy color photograph. He handed Trent the picture. “This man was murdered in your apartment,” he said in a chummy tone. “Recognize him?”

The mockery was evident and
if Trent had had a gun, he would have considered shooting McClure where he sat. “His name was Winston.”

“What do you know about his death?”

“What you’ve told me.”

“No more than that?”

“No.”

“When did you meet?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“I rode out to the Whiskey A-Go-Go Lounge to question the Apostles. He was shooting pool with a biker named Utah.”

“Is that where you got your face rearranged?”

“Yes.”

There was a knock on the door
, and a key slid into the lock. “That will be Radcliff with the coffee,” Clay said, keeping his eyes steadfastly on Trent.

Radcliff
set a tray of coffees on the table. He glanced over McClure’s shoulder at his notes, gave Trent the gunman’s salute, then backed out the door.

“You alleged,” Clay said, sipping his coffee from a paper cup, “that you rode out to the
Apostles club. Why?”

“I wanted to discuss the park shooting and kidnapping and learn
Garcia’s thoughts on it,” Trent said to a host of disbelieving stares. “Hey, if anyone could use something hot to drink, it’s me.”

McClure handed him a cup of coffee.

“Because you were searching for Chloe,” said Clay.

“
Yes,” Trent said, devouring the bad coffee.

“Try to see our side of it,” McClure said, noting that fact in his book. “You leave the
Miami Police Department with a dishonorable discharge and pitch your tent in Atlanta; then you ‘happen’ upon a carjacking and knife one gangster and kill two with such pinpoint accuracy that it looks like a top pro knew their plans inside and out.”

“And the next day
you’re involved with the park murder and child abduction,” said Priest.

“Any question
s you may have formed about me will be answered at a Board of Inquiry,” Trent said, staring at Clay. “That’s the fair thing to do.”

“And now,” McClure said,
dutifully picking up the ball and trying to roll it forward, “Winston is murdered in your apartment, and you claim that a hit man was using you for target practice in Piedmont Park.”

“
Claim?”
Trent asked, trying to find some firm footing in all of this. “You think I’m making this shit up?”

Clay spoke. “Everyone in my circle thinks
that you’re a mischief-maker; and that you had some level of complicity in the shootings and child abduction. I can’t ignore the accusations they have brought against you.”

“You can bring all the accusations against me you want,” he said, glancing at Butler. “
Until I drove out to the Whiskey A-Go-Go Lounge, I had had nothing whatsoever to do with the gangsters. And I’m not a contract killer.”

Butler
looked at Trent as if he were something unpleasant that he had just stepped in. “We’ll keep you under observation,” he said. “If you’re up to any tricks, we’ll know; so you might as well level with us.”

Trent held his cup with both hands and said,
“What the hell should I have done? I fought off some cranked-up psychos on the highway. And then I found Maya searching for her daughter. So what?”

Priest tapped a knuckle on his tooth and said, “
How do you explain your proximity to each murder?”

“I
can’t,” he said, nodding at McClure and motioning to him with a finger to switch off the recorder.

McClure consulted Clay with his eyes, nodded silently, then picked up the recorder and shut it off.

“I’ve done some research,” Trent said steadily, “and I’m positive that you have a spree killer roaming Midtown; you think I’m that killer, don’t you?”

He’d caught them on the hop.
Priest was looking at his heavy coat hanging by the door. McClure rubbed his hands across his shaved scalp, and Butler frowned. Only the slightest flush betrayed Clay’s irritation.

“I don’t think you’re th
at killer,” Clay said. “But, yes, we do have a serial killer working the downtown.”

“If you can’t
find him,” Trent said, “air it on
America’s Most Wanted.
They have a good track record when it comes to catching criminals.”

The room remained silent.

“The message on my answering machine,” Trent said. “Did anyone listen to it?”

McClure
consulted his notes again. “Yes,” he said, tugging on the tip of his ear. “There was no number on the Caller ID, though; we’ll have to ensure that you didn’t leave it yourself.”

Clay
ignored both Trent’s and McClure’s remarks. “Spill it, Palmer. All of it.”

Chapter 26

Trent spilled most of it, composing
a careful and minimal tale that excluded his exhuming the body and stashing Anima at the Motel 6.

“
. . . and after Radcliff dropped you at the grocery store,” Clay said, “you walked home, right?”

“Yes,” Trent said, looking instinctively to Priest for support and finding none. “I was waiting on Priest when I got
the call; I assumed it was the police because a man left a message that there had been a break in the Chloe Lee abduction case. He said I needed to hustle to the site of the park shooting.

“
So I’m jogging through the park toward Oak Hill, and all the sudden I’m hiding in the lake from some fucker who’s shooting at me with a high-powered rifle.”

They gave no sign of having heard him so Trent changed the subject. “Was
Garcia’s information reliable? Did you find a body?”

“Yes,” Priest said. “McClure rounded up a team and drove out last night.”
Then he looked at McClure. “How’d it go?”

“
With all the new snow yesterday, the stream water was over the bank; it took us half the night to get the corpse out of the mud,” McClure said, scratching the faint stubble on his square chin. “The body was several months decomposed so you can imagine it was not a pretty sight.”

“Any idea who it was?” Trent
asked, feeling confident that his tracks had been covered.

“The
murder
victim
had no ID,” Clay said. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

Trent looked perplexed. “I don
’t know.”

“Could you at least guess
?” Priest asked irritably.

“
For chrissake, I have no idea.”

Butler couldn’t let it go. He pointed a
bony index finger at Trent and said, “You want us to believe that you waltzed into the Apostles bar unannounced, got the crap stomped out of you, and then Garcia tells you were to find a corpse?”

“Strange but true
.”

Clay stared skeptically. “Why would
Garcia tell you this? What’s his gain?”

Trent shrugged. “He offered to help because I killed Triple’s brother
; he said the victim’s identity might shed some light on who kidnapped Chloe.”

“Did
Garcia know who the victim was?”

“If he did, he didn’t tell me.”

Clay stayed silent a moment. “Rikki’s working overtime to put a name to that person, and we’re combing our missing person files. We’ll know soon enough.”

The door opened and
the ME, dressed in wrinkled surgical green medical scrubs, slid into the room. He gave Trent a wry behave-yourself look, dropped an autopsy in front of Clay, and exited as silently as he had entered.

Clay pulled on his bifocals and picked up the report. “Winston had been dead in the region of fifteen minutes when
the ME got a thermometer up his ass; no rigor had set in.”

“Hey, Butler,
how’d you get to my apartment so fast?” Trent asked, then watched his reaction.

Faint blotches of color appeared on
Butler’s cheeks, and the skin tightened on his jaw. He glanced at his hands. “A neighbor heard the shots and called in a nine-one-one. Monroe is a cut through on my way to the station. I picked it off the scanner and ran the address.”

Clay was looking alternately at Trent and Butler when Priest cut in quietly. “The doctor pulled these splinters from Palmer’s neck,” he said, passing a plastic bag to Clay. “I’m no medical expert, but when Palmer showed up at the apartment
, I’d say he was on the verge of hypothermia.”

Clay nodded but didn’t lift his eyes from the report.
“With the length of time Palmer was in the water,” he said, “and the ME’s postmortem interval, there’s no way he could have shot Winston.”

“Palmer, are you withholding evidence?”

Trent lied straight to his face. “No.”

“
What did you sell Garcia?”

“
Nothing.”

“W
hat was the killer looking for in your apartment?”

“I have no
fucking idea,” Trent said, clinging doggedly to his story.

“You’ve got to do better than that,” Clay said
, bridging his fingertips.

“
Maybe the Midtown Murderer found out I knew about the body and now he’s trying to cover it up by killing me,” Trent said. “Maybe that’s what Garcia wanted.”

Clay cast a look around the room. “No one, outside of the people at this table knows the details o
f the Midtown Murderer. So if there’s a leak, I’ll track it ruthlessly and that person will spend time behind bars. Am I clear?”

The men
nodded. Clay waved for Priest, Butler, and McClure to wait in the hallway. When they were alone, he stood and regarded Trent. He seemed to have reached a conclusion. “I congratulate you on discovering the body; perhaps it will shed light on this other sensitive business we are dealing with.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Clay walked briskly across the room and rapped on the door. “Take it easy and we’ll get all this straightened out,” he said over his shoulder.

“
Color me reassured.”

The deputy opened the door and Clay walked out. “You’re dismissed,” he said
more loudly, the sound of his loafers fading on the linoleum.

Chapter 27

Trent took the elevator
down to the third floor and found the art department. Peering through a circular glass window in the swinging door, he spotted Rikki sitting on a stool with her back to him. He thought again how he wanted to build a relationship with a woman. A chance to heal from the crushing blow caused by Sylvia’s death and to fill the lonely void in his heart.

He quietly opened the door and walked up be
side her.

A clay bust sat on a pedestal covered with a stained oilcloth. She was listening to soft classical music and referring to various photographs and X-rays of a skull. Those portraits, which were taken at different angles, sat on easels positioned behind the carved head and shoulders.

Trent looked over the tools of her trade. Picks and probes and scalpels and spatulas rested neatly in a wooden box on a table.

Using a hooked dentist’s pick, she carefully scraped clay from under the eye. Then she used her
unvarnished fingernail to smooth the surface. Trent admired her steady hands and concentration. He said, “Ahem.”

She turned.
“Oh, Trent. How long have you been standing there?”

“Only a minute.”

She lifted a can of Seven-up and sipped from a straw. “I’m glad your here. Gosh, I need a break.” Her hair was pushed behind her ears, and she wore a white lab coat over her blue jeans and sweater top. “Trent, what on earth happened to your face?”

“I w
ent searching for Chloe in a less than desirable part of town.”

She stood and delicately smoothed his eyebrow next to the nasty welt. “I’ve got some Vaseline Intensive Care in my purse
; let me put a dab on those stitches.”

“Sure.”

She retrieved the tube then said, “Hold still.”

Trent did as he was told.

When she dabbed the ointment, he briefly considered pulling her toward him and kissing her lips. With much effort he meditated on a heart-shaped diamond dangling from a gold necklace around her neck.

“That should make it all better.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She waved a hand at the bust. “What do you think of my puzzle?”

“Male or Female?”

“It’s an adult female,” she said, tracing her index finger around the jaw line on the X-ray. “Facial reconstructions can be tricky
; but I’d say she was twenty-five to thirty-five years of age.”

“Cause of death?”

“Can’t say.”

Trent looked at the tapered cheekbones and narrow forehead. “Any idea
who
she is?”

“Not yet,” she said, twirling a length of hair. “Daddy comes down every hour to check
my progress; I’ve told him it’s a painstakingly slow process that could take days, not hours.”

“W
hat happens when you’re finished?”

“I’ll
take pictures of the bust and then scan them into our facial recognition software to re-create an image of her face; then I can create different profiles with various facial characteristics. We’ll use those photographic images to run adds, print flyers, and broadcast her information on the Internet. Hopefully we’ll get a definite dental identification before then.”

“How long has she been dead?”

“No more than three months; that’s why I think someone will come forward based on the initial profile I work up.”

Trent changed the topic. “Rikki, are you and Mike Butler dating?”

She moved toward Trent and looked at him close. “At times we have, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Well, he’d like it to be fulltime, but I’m not ready for a long-term commitment. I had Robin when I was quite young, and the marriage didn’t work out. It’s taken me a while to get back on track with the university; that’s where I need to focus my energy.”

“Oh,” he said
, feeling breathless and afraid. “Rikki, would you like to take in a movie with me sometime?”

She
smiled and said, “Sure.”

Trent
’s face came up with a grin. “If you’re not busy tonight . . .”

“Trent,” she said in a kind voice, “I have a party to attend with Robin at s
even; later in the evening, I have an obligation.”

“That’s
OK.”

She smiled
. “Call me anytime.”

A warm glow blossomed in him. “I will do that
. Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Enjoy your evening.”

“Sorry I can’t go out with you tonight.”

“Me too.”

Trent was walking with his head down
, thinking about Rikki, when he pushed open the door to Priest’s office. Only it wasn’t Priest’s office, but the room adjacent to his office.

The hall light spilled in allowing Trent to see
a director’s chair and TV recording equipment aimed at a curtain. Several folding chairs were positioned in the same direction.

Trent closed the door and turned on the lights. He sat at an elementary control panel
and examined an array of switches. Then he put on a set of headphones and rotated the volume control.

Voices! Trent
dimmed the lights and slid the curtain back. Even though the finger-print smudged mirror was one-way, he still felt exposed.

The lights were out in the interrogation room
, making it impossible for him to see the occupants, but he heard part of a conversation that made his stomach churn.

“I wish that cat would go back to Timbuktu.”

“Ain’t gonna happen.”

“It’s time to fuck him over like he’s never been fucked before
,” a voice said boldly.

“Yeah. He’s on the run now.”

“Hard to believe he found the body; who’s he think he is, Mannix?”

“It was watertight
; only four people knew about it. So who tipped him?”

“You’re forgetting that Duke rigged the meth lab.”

“Yeah. He must have gotten to Garcia before we iced him.”

“That’s the only answer.”

“We’re still safe if we fuck him over.”

“Clay sprinkled his ass with stardust and
got him excited. We gotta whack him before he gets the ball rolling.”

“We’ll do it quick.”

“You got it.”

A minute later the door
opened an inch and someone peered out, but the narrow strip of hall light wasn’t enough for Trent to see him clearly. Satisfied the hall was empty; the two men ducked out and closed the door.

Trent racked his brain trying to place their voices but decided he’d never heard
either of them. He waited until he was sure they were gone. Then he stealthily made his way out of the building.