Two Graves (A Kesle City Homicide Novel) (29 page)

“One piece or bikini?”

“A one piece. Something sexy but not too revealing. Tastefully enticing. Sporty.”

Del nodded. “I have just the suit. Down the rack this way.”

Del showed him several suits before he decided on one. She was impressed with the care he took in choosing. As she packaged the suit and took his cash, she made small talk. “Is it a birthday present?”

“No, just because she is who she is.”

“Isn’t that sweet.”

*

Preston’s legs ached as he crouched in the bushes. According to the luminous dial on his watch, he had about fifteen minutes before she got home. She was prompt; he had to give her that.

As an after thought, he used his knife to cut the labels out of the suit. No sense having them trace it too easily.

The labels went into his pocket and he edged closer to the driveway. Her parent’s car would block her approach. He would appear behind her like a wraith.

Then, he would strike. Like the wrath of God. A wrathful wraith – he liked that.

He checked his watch again. He was getting giddy. He was excited – mentally and physically. And, who wouldn’t be? He could still picture little Miss Wendy Hoellstern in her swimsuit. Not a bikini like all the other girls. Wendy wore a one piece, a racing suit. It was tight, form fitting. Perfect for slicing through the water. It covered a lot of her body, not like the bikinis. It was sexier because it did cover so much and still revealed so much.

Once she was in the water, the suit clung to her. It outlined her every curve, from her ripe breasts to her pouty little twat. Wendy knew that. She took advantage of that.

Her body was so lean and muscular. She flaunted her tight, tanned body in those swimsuits and little summer things she loved to wear. Her body was always there – hidden but on display.

Offered to all – except him. For him, there was only ridicule.

He couldn’t swim. He tried to learn but every time he got in the water, he’d go under and start to panic. He’d be dragged to the side – sputtering and gasping. She would just laugh and do an easy dive into the water.

She told him that she’d have him when he learned to swim or Hell froze over so he didn’t have to learn. He still couldn’t swim but that didn’t matter anymore. Tonight, she would see what she had been missing.

Then, she could do a dead man’s float all the way to Hell.

*

He listened to her walk up the driveway, just as he had listened to her on the previous nights. She was full of confidence and so sure of herself. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t pause.

He sprang and wrapped his arm around her, covering her mouth. “I’ve got a knife.”

He jabbed the end of the knife through her top, just nicking her side to make the point. She didn’t struggle.

“I’ll kill you if you scream. Throw your bag in the bushes.”

He watched it land. It slid straight down and disappeared into the darkness. It might be seen in the daylight but that would be too late.

He had the tape ready. It hung from his jacket like a party steamer. And what a party it was going to be. One piece went on her mouth. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. She let out a muffled cry. “No noise. Put your hands together in front of you.”

The next piece of tape went around and around her wrists. He slipped the rope around her neck and pulled it snug. “Go ahead. Along the garage. Make a noise and I’ll kill you.”

He led his captive to the back fence. His heart was beating as they covered the open ground. He forced her over the waist high, chain link fence. He had to half lift her and enjoyed the feel of her tight ass in his hands. She fell in a heap on the other side.

The rope caught on the fence and he could hear her choking. He took his time struggling over and untangling the rope.

They crouched on the ground for a moment while she tried to breathe through her nose. She had started to cry so it was hard for her. Poor baby.

When she was breathing again, they continued along the yard and cut across the back of the neighbor’s house. He opened the gate and went through.

The night before, WD 40 had taken care of the unholy squeak that the lazy owner hadn’t bothered with.

At the next neighbor’s house, he pushed open the garage door that he had popped earlier with a crow bar. He shoved her through the door and she sprawled out on the garage floor.

Degget smiled as he watched Beverly walk into Club 9.

That was one mystery solved. He was beginning to understand why Beverly took such pains to get lost in the crowd before he headed here.

Degget walked through the door into the dark interior. He could hear the singer even before he paid the cover and walked past the bouncers. Degget gave the bouncers a once over and approved of the professional stance. They were relaxed, non-threatening and smiling but with enough muscle to make anyone think twice about making trouble.

Degget took in the bar while he searched for Beverly. There were many couples on the dance floor dancing to the Melissa Etheridge song. The singer was doing a decent job of the pounding guitar beat. Degget just wasn’t sure if she really was a she. The bar was pretty crowded and the two male bartenders, shirtless and in tight jeans, were kept busy. Beverly was already standing with his back pressed up against the bar with a drink in his hand. Too fast for him to have had to order, he obviously was a regular at the bar.

Moving to the other end of the bar, Degget waited to be noticed by one of the bartenders and settled in to watch Beverly. The singer switched to another Etheridge song, ‘Nowhere To Go’. The men on the dance floor stepped closer, enjoying the slow beat. Degget decided that if it wasn’t a she, he was definitely on his way to becoming one. He certainly captured Melissa’s raw, sensual voice and Degget found himself almost swaying to the sound.

Degget ordered a Manhattan and took a small sip when it came. The bartender waited a brief moment. When Degget nodded and smiled, the bartender returned a satisfied smile and moved on to the next customer.

Good music and a good Manhattan – as undercover assignments went, this wasn’t too bad. Degget settled back and watched Beverly scope out the men around him. Carefully cataloging the man’s reaction to each new face and body, Degget created a profile for his next visit to the bar.

“Barky, Barky, Barky!” the little boy called to the yapping dog. “Shut up, dipstick. Mom will make us come in and unpack.”

The small dog ran a circle around his tail and bounded toward the young boy. It jumped up and put its paws on the boy’s shoulders. He scored one lick before being pushed away. The boy didn’t notice the long bloody paw prints on his shoulders. By then, he had seen what the dog was barking at.

He ran up to the side of the pool and stooped down to peer at the lump under the solar blanket. “I’ll be damned,” he said, mimicking his grandfather. “Hey, you can’t swim in our pool. You’re gettin’ the water all dirty. My daddy is going to be pissed at you. Hey!”

“William, get in here and help me with your suitcase.”

Five year old Billy turned to where his mother was standing in the sliding doors. Before he could get a word out, his mother was running toward him. “William! Did Barky do that to your shoulders?”

“Huh?” He wiped at the blood on his shoulders. “I guess so. But, Mom, somebody is swimming in our pool.”

Billy’s mother was way ahead of him. She had already seen the body floating under the blanket. She screamed for her husband and scooped Billy into her arms. That set Barky off again.

By the time Billy’s father ran out back, Billy’s mother was collapsed in one of the lawn chairs, sobbing. Billy was running back and forth from his mother to the pool with Barky in close pursuit.

*

Mann stepped out of the hot sun into the bit of shade under the roof. Shane Kydd joined him, her notebook open. Alf Buchanan slipped in beside her, juggling three cups.

“I hope that’s something cool.”

“Lemonade.”

“Thank God.” Mann looked into the cup at the pink lemonade and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. The liquid in the cup resembled the water of the pool, pinkish with bits of... He drank the entire cupful down and waited to see if it was going to come back up. When it didn’t, he asked Alf what he had.

“The girl’s name is Linda Forrest. You can just see the roof of her house over there. She lives there with her parents.”

“Did they know she was missing?”

“Reported her three days ago,” Shane cut in. “She was very prompt and they got concerned when she didn’t show up after her night class at the University.”

“What happened to the report?”

“Filed and forgotten. Missing person’s reports are up almost three hundred percent since the Slasher started his little games.”

“Three days?”

“Goes with what my prelim shows,” the Medical Examiner said. “It’s a tough one to call though with this heat and the chemicals. The owners were away and the auto chlorinator was working really well. She’s in pretty bad shape.”

Mann didn’t need to be reminded.

“What did you get from the parents?”

“We haven’t shown them the suit but they’re sure it isn’t hers. She only owned bikinis.”

Mann looked at Shane. “I’ll want a complete work-up on her timetable on the last night she was seen. And then back for two weeks. I want to know when that psycho got to her and where. Canvass the neighborhood and talk to everyone. Anyone that doesn’t want to cooperate, I want to see at the warehouse.”

“Her parent’s already found her knapsack beside their garage. I think we can start the walk from there.”

“Do you think he’s a local?”

“No, but somebody had to have seen something. He was here a long time. What about the people looking after the house?”

“They didn’t see anything. They did a half ass job. They just came in the front and out the front. Assuming they came in at all. They didn’t even notice the jimmied door on the garage. Everything is automatic with the pool. The people have a pool of their own so they didn’t use this one.”

“All right,” he said to Shane. “Get on the canvass. Oversee it yourself. Talk to everyone and get a list of names of anyone visiting over the past six days. Check all the usual, deliveries, power, phone, cable, the works. Track them all back to a work order. I want this neighborhood covered. He didn’t find all this by accident in the dark. He has spent time here before she was taken.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Love that girl’s voice,” Buchanan said, after Shane had hurried away.

“How can you pull something like that from the water and then think about Kydd’s voice?”

“What makes you think I could pull something like that from the water without thinking about Kydd’s voice?”

Mann nodded. He had a point.

“At least this clears Drabick,” Buchanan said.

What was left of Drabick would provide a DNA sample but he was in little crispy pieces when Linda Forrest was killed.

*

Mann looked at the detectives scattered around the room that the workmen had created only three days before. A thick wall separated the main room, with all its distracting telephones and comings and goings, from this meeting room. Comparing notes was important and so was just general bullshitting of ideas back and forth.

“Kydd, tell us about Linda Forrest.”

“Nice girl. Well liked. Good grades. She had gone back to school to get her MBA after spending time in Rwanda, for God’s sake. Not the usual save the world type but she did want to do something before she went into the business world and spent two years in that hell hole.”

“Was she into the market at all?”

“No, not yet. She had few contacts but nothing substantial. She started in January and was barely in the program. We don’t see any connection with Hart. He didn’t go to the same schools. We know that much for sure. I’m looking for any connection, though.”

“What about that night?”

“She had written an exam in the afternoon. She had another regular class that night. She attended that until the end. As far as anyone knows, she got on her usual bus, then subway, then bus. Her backpack was found in the bushes beside her garage.”

“When?”

“Two days before the body was found. The parents tried to get the police involved. A uniform did an initial interview, filed the sheet, but that was as far as it got.”

“Did the parent’s search the neighborhood?”

“After they found the backpack but they didn’t see the body in the pool. We play it like this. She was taken across her back yard and to the neighbor’s garage. At the house she was found.”

“What about a car?”

“No. We found rope fibers in the fence behind her place. Doc, you might be able to fill in more here.”

“Not much. She was tied and gagged. He used tape again. He obviously does not trust his knots for anything but the noose or, more likely, the tape is easier. She was raped.”

As Buchanan paused, each of the detectives pictured the scene in his own mind. Naked and alone in a dark garage with oil and gasoline stinking in her nostrils, overpowered by the stench of the sweating body of her attacker

“After the rape, he started to cut. He wasn’t as neat as before. She was,” Alf wiped his lips. “She was still alive when he started cutting. He just started to cut her. CSU found clear evidence in the blood smears that she was thrashing around in her own blood.”

Alf sat heavily in one of the chairs. “He cut her real good but didn’t take any organs. Then, he put the bathing suit on her. He cut his signature in her back and tossed her in the pool. She drowned or bled out. Then he took her larynx while she was in the pool. He just left her there for that little boy to find.”

“All right. We’ve lost time on this one but we can make it up. Continue the canvas. Someone saw him – find that someone. Get a sketch of the suit to the media and hit the streets. Find out where it was sold. Right now, those are our best bets.”

Propped up on one elbow, Leonard Beverly ran his hand over Degget’s chest and muscled abs. “When I saw you at the bar, I thought you were a piece of heaven. I was so right.”