Shred of Evidence

Victor watched the girl stroll across the mall, thinking, if circumstances were different he may step over to her, introduce himself, maybe make conversation about the black clothes she wore and all the silver jewelry, the black mascara. As it stood, with Victor dressed as the mall Santa, it was out of the question.

But then she was angling his way, the kiddy traffic light this time of the afternoon on a Monday so there was no line, his elves out smoking or calling their boyfriends on their cell phones or browsing the music shop.

The girl came straight on through the Enchanted Village and sat in his lap. The flashing lights on the Christmas tree danced on the silver jewelry, red and green winking off the piercings in her chin and nose, the triple loop on her right eyebrow. Victor would have put her at twenty-two but it was hard to say with all the makeup.

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It’s Saturday. I’m sleeping off a mild hangover when Jen opens the curtains to let in the sunlight. Instant headache.“Get up,” she says. Throws my jeans on the bed, the dark blue ones that’re all stiff and hurt my crotch when I sit. “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s not sleep it away for a change.”

I try to cover my head with her pillow, but it smells like her conditioner (rotten flowers) and by now the headache has moved to the back of my neck and is making its way down to my stomach. Lost cause. I might’s well get up.

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He listened to Emily’s footsteps move purposefully across the kitchen floor above him. In twenty minutes, her automatic garage door would grind open and her car engine kick in. Then the house would be his again for nine to eleven hours depending on how late she worked. He waited another five minutes to make sure she did not forget anything, but she never did. Emily was a creature of habit, the most organized person he had ever happened across. He supposed that was what came from living without people or pets.

He had never seen Emily, but figured she was one of two women in a photo that stood on her dresser. There were no pictures of men or children, so he further assumed she had never been married. Her wardrobe belonged to a woman no younger than forty, someone who worked in an office and did not go out much.

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Joanne was torn from a deep sleep when she felt a vise-like grip on her shoulder.

She blinked vacantly at the dark-clad man who pulled the bed sheets off of her. A part of her mind refused to believe that this was actually happening; Joanne thought she was still dreaming. But once the man effortlessly pulled the young woman out of her bed and held her close to him with his hand over her mouth, Joanne realized with growing horror that this was all too real.

“Is Denise here?” he whispered into her ear. He held a box cutter close to her face. “Just answer with a shake of your head for ‘no’, or a nod for ‘yes’.”

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Babjak pulled to the curb and cut the engine. He quickly glanced around the street—empty. In the passenger seat, Rucchio hung limply against his seat belt, mouth open and eyes shut. The stain around the knife in his chest wasn’t getting any larger. Babjak slipped off a glove and felt for a pulse. After half a minute he gave up. Not much chance that Rucchio was faking.

When he’d offered Babjak the money, Rucchio had tapped his right breast pocket. Babjak slid two fingers inside the dead man’s coat, careful not to touch the knife, and pulled out a bundle of hundred dollar bills in a plastic baggie. He counted quickly. There were twenty five of them.

Bonus.

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The clock ticked, and Elsa’s stomach churned. They’d kept her in that dimly lit, 10-by-10 room for eighty-seven minutes, and no one had told her why. The room’s only door opened, and the same hatchet-faced young man who had initially ushered her into this same room entered.

He was wearing the same black polyester slacks, white short-sleeved shirt, and black clip-on tie sported by the Homeland Security employees who had kept Elsa from boarding her flight. His “uniform” differed from theirs in that it was free of insignia—no patches, no badges, no web-belt, no cuffs.

He stood there looking at her for a few moments. Elsa was too frightened to speak. Her stomach jumped again, so loud in her ears that she was sure he could hear it.

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The one-sided conversation was being conducted with enthusiasm. Homicide Detective Sergeant Gina Nolan had discovered the joys of low-carb dieting and was expounding on it at some length to her bored partner on the other side of the desk.

Detective Jill Waliewiski still felt obliged to show some interest. “But if you eat only the meat, what do you do with the bun?” Waliewiski decided it was a dumb question, but it was all she could think of to ask, and now it was too late to take it back.

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I stared at the darkened apartment window, waiting for the light to come on, waiting for my heart to break. Darcy sat in the passenger seat beside me, flipping through US Weekly to see who’s dating/cheating/newly anorexic this week.

“Lindsay Lohan?”

“Fake,” I said, straining my eyes to peer through the fogged window of the borrowed Camry.

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Emilio Baca was six months out of prison in Huntsville on an aggravated robbery rap. He had been the driver for a moderately successful two-man team of armed robbers knocking off liquor stores and other targets of opportunity. He was what they called a horse holder in the Old West.

Going back to prison wasn’t on his Top 10 List of things to do. He wanted Brady Investigations to help keep him out.

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Wishbone Lane was a dead-end road, the last property a restored farmhouse used to rehabilitate kennel dogs. I wasn’t here for the dogs. I was here to determine if Sheridan also distributed the heroin that killed my client’s daughter.

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