Black Widow (10 page)

23

The coffee shop had amateur art on all the walls and in the corner were large bookshelves. Two men were playing chess at a table, and a woman in a beanie was writing something in a journal. One employee was behind the counter. Other than that, the place was empty.

Stanton waited until she chose the spot. A table near the windows, in plain view of the cashier and the men playing chess. He sat across from her and waited a beat until she placed her purse down by her feet.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” he said. “I just didn’t want to approach you in front of any co-workers.”

“I appreciate that. So who are you exactly?”

“I’m a detective with the homicide detail of the HPD. I was assigned the two murders I told you about.”

“The news called them the Black Widow Murders.”

He nodded. “That was an unfortunate nickname from our department. But I guess they have to call it something.”

The cashier came over and asked if they wanted anything. Stanton declined and Heidi asked for a coffee with cream.

“They have really good coffee here,” she said.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“What, are you Mormon or something?” she said dismissively. He grinned. “Oh my gosh. You are. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He looked around. “I like this place. It reminds me of the coffee shops I would study at in college.”

“I know. College was the best time of my life. I guess I’m drawn to anything that reminds me of it.” She looked out the windows. “I didn’t kill those men.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“But that’s why you’re here. You think I killed them.” The coffee came. She thanked the cashier and he laid a ticket on the table. Heidi took a sip of the coffee and placed it gingerly on the table. “How did they die?”

Stanton hesitated, wondering how many of the details he should discuss and what had been released to the press. “They were tortured to death. They died primarily from blood loss.”

“Primarily?”

“They were given potassium injections, probably to slow them down. They were also in severe shock. The ME thinks the blood loss is what killed them. But they would have died shortly anyway from the potassium. Whoever killed them made sure there was no way they could be saved.”

She nodded. Her eyes came up quickly, caught his, and went back down to her coffee. Her eyes were like crystals, large and pure. Stanton felt like they could have gleamed in the dark. He had to remind himself why he was here. He had to picture those two men strapped to a bed with swaths of skin pulled off.

“What were the dates they were killed?” Heidi asked.

“May first and June third.”

She nodded. “I worked all day on those days.”

“You know what days of
the week they are off the top of your head?”

“I only have Sundays off. Most murders don’t happen on Sundays.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged and took another sip of coffee before picking up a sugar packet. “I don’t know,” she said, tearing open the packet and pouring the contents into the black liquid. “Just something I’ve always felt. I was a pediatric trauma surgeon in Los Angeles for a while. The murders we received were mostly during the week or Friday and Saturday. There didn’t seem to be as many on Sundays.” She smiled. “Maybe because all the murderers were in church. No offense.”

“None taken. It’s probably true. A high percentage of people with antisocial personality disorder are also fervently religious.”

“So was I right?”

“Yes. One was a Wednesday and one was a Monday.”

She nodded, not looking at him. “I would have been working.”

“The time of death for both men was just after one in the morning.”

A group of young students walked in, and Heidi’s eyes went to them. She watched them a while
and then turned back to Stanton.

“For severe shock of the type you’re talking about, where it could cause cardiac arrest, the wounds would have to be inflicted long before the time of death. The trauma would have to be sustained over a prolonged period.”

He nodded. It had somehow slipped his mind that she was a physician and would know that. “Yeah. We think the torture began somewhere around five in the evening.”

“I work until eight, as you just saw.”

He nodded. An emotion came over him just then, and he wasn’t sure what it was exactly. He couldn’t identify it. A mixture of disappointment that he hadn’t found his collar, and a sense that he hadn’t wanted it to be her.

“Why does Baby Dolls Companions have you listed as one of their employees?”

She placed both hands around the cup of coffee as though warming her fingers. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask them.”

Stanton took out his cell phone and pretended to take a note. Instead, he opened the camera app and snapped a photo of Heidi.

He debated what to do next. To inform her that she was about to have an arrest warrant executed and shouldn’t go into work tomorrow was a crime. But he also couldn’t let her be tackled by some overzealous rookies on their first takedown.

“You have to do something for me, Heidi. And you have to believe that it is the best thing for you… you have to go down to the police station and turn yourself in. Call in sick to work for tomorrow and just go down now and tell them you think there’s an arrest warrant out for you.”

Her eyes widened. “Is there? Are they going to arrest me at the hospital?”

“Not if you turn yourself in.”

“But I came with you. I told you everything you wanted to know.”

He nodded. “I know. But it’s not my call. Just turn yourself in tonight. Okay?”

They looked at each other a moment longer than Stanton was comfortable, and she said, “Okay.”

He rose. “We’ll talk again, I’m sure.”

As he was walking away, she said, “Detective?”

“Yeah?”

“You believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t kill anyone?”

He hesitated a moment and then said, “Yeah. I do.”

24

Stanton parked outside Baby Dolls Companions, though there was nothing marking it as such, and went inside. The woman from before, Autumn, wasn’t there but another girl, young and blonde, was standing behind a desk flipping through some paperwork.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Yes,” he pulled up his phone and showed her the photo he’d taken of Heidi. “Does she work here?”

“Oh, Heidi. Yeah. Did you want to set an appointment with her?”

Stanton’s heart dropped. “No, thank you.” He turned to leave.

“Her hair’s different, though.”

He stopped. “Excuse me?”

“Her hair. It’s a lot longer.
And a different color. Was she wearing a wig?”

Stanton looked at the photo. He had seen her hair from up close. It was not a wig. “What color is her hair?”

“Black. About shoulder length.”

He walked back to the desk. “When is the next appointment Heidi has available?”

She opened a tab on the computer. “Um… let’s see… looks like next Tuesday night. So what is that, like five days? Did you want to set it now?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, we just need a major credit card. We place a hold on it but don’t run it until after the date.”

Stanton grinned. That was a clever way to have the
escorts upsell services during the date. “Sure.” He handed her his credit card. She ran it and opened a file on the computer with his name. She then handed him a printout with the amount held, $2,500, and the date of the meeting printed across the top. On the bottom was an illustration of a heart with an arrow through it.

“And where will I be meeting her?”

“We’ll contact you with the date information the night before. Our escorts have the entire date planned from start to finish, so you can just enjoy yourself.”

“I appreciate it. Thank you.”

As he walked out to his car, he tried Suzanne’s phone, but she didn’t answer. He put the phone in his pocket and drove home.

Darkness had taken over the island. The ocean glimmered and swirled with the moon and the waves continued to crackle near shore. But the island was black. Parts of Oahu were lit as brightly as anywhere on the mainland, but that was interspersed with blankets of darkness for dozens of miles. Powerful rivers and inactive volcanoes rumbled underneath the murky exterior.

Stanton parked in his driveway and got out. He went to the door and heard laughter. Inside, Suzanne, Mathew, and Johnny were playing a board game. They didn’t notice him standing there and he didn’t alert them.

The way Suzanne interacted with them was humbling. She was kind and never judged them about anything. He could see Mathew talking to her about things he would never share with his father.

And Stanton would have to be blind not to notice that Suzanne was wearing makeup for babysitting. She was in her workout outfit still. A tight black and light-blue yoga suit. She was fit and tan, and he knew that he should be attracted to her. But something wasn’t there. Some spark, some magnetism that couldn’t be put into words. Suzanne was beautiful and sexy, and funny and smart… and as much as Stanton tried, he couldn’t think about her in a way that would make him ask her on a date.

Heidi popped into his mind just then, and he had to push her away.
Hit the delete button
, he thought.

“Hey!” Suzanne said, finally noticing him.

“Daddy!”

Stanton came over and sat down at the table. “What’re we playing?”

“Ticket to Ride,” Mathew said. “You want in?”

“Yup.”

Stanton glanced up to Suzanne, who smiled at him. She reached out and gently touched his hand, a gesture letting him know something, but he didn’t know exactly what. Maybe permission that it was okay to think of her in that way.

Slowly, Heidi came back into his thoughts.

25

Connor Jones sat on the beach next to a bonfire. Several women were around him, all drunk, and he could smell a joint being passed around. His buddy Todd was hitting a six-foot bong while a girl sucked on his ear.

“You want?” Todd said, in that high-pitched stoner voice he got when he was holding in a toke.

“I’ll pass,” Jones said. “I get tested.”

Todd blew the smoke out in donut-shaped O’s. “This is good
fuckin’ bud. Where’d we get this?”

The girl removed his ear from her mouth and said, “My dad grew it.”

“So C, when you gonna hook up with Maria, man. She was askin’ about you just a second ago.”

“I don’t know, man. I heard she gets around.”

“So? Ain’t that what you want?”

He shook his head, slipping off his shoes and burying his feet in the sand. “I’m twenty-six years old, Todd. What the fuck have I done with my life, man?”

“Are you serious?” he said, passing the bong to the girl. “C, you’re a fucking detective, man. Remember how we’d sit around in sixth grade and talk about what we were gonna do when we got older?”

Jones smiled. “You said you wanted to rob trains.”

“I know, and now nobody rides trains. But what we used to talk about you did, man. You’re a fucking detective and you’re not even thirty. That’s huge.”

He shrugged. “It is pretty cool, man. Like everyday is exciting, you know? I’m never bored.”

Todd pulled the bong back to his lips before the girl could take a hit. He sucked in a bowl and then blew it out into her mouth before kissing her. “Holy shit, I am really high.”

Jones chuckled. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it out. It was the precinct.

“This is Jones.”

“Connor, I need you down at the station,” Kai said. His voice was drenched with sleep, and Jones could tell he was probably out of it enough that he wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow. “They got her. She just walked in. I can’t get ahold of Jon, so you
gotta go.”

“Who?”

“The Black Widow.”

“Where?”

“Kalihi City. I told them to bring her up to Beretania as soon as they got a minute.”

Jones jumped to his feet and hurriedly put his shoes on. “I’m on my way.” He hung up and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

“Where you goin’?” Todd shouted.

“Ciao,” Jones yelled without looking back.

Jones’ corvette screeched to a stop in front of the HPD headquarters on Beretania Street. He parked illegally and ran to the building. He was all the way to the front doors when he realized he didn’t lock his car. Running back, he frantically pushed his alarm button until he heard the two beeps and saw the lights flash.

Jones ran inside and pressed the button for the elevator. He’d done this a million times and not once did he ever think the elevator was slow. Now it made him pace, and he pushed the button again a dozen times before the doors dinged and opened.

He went up to the sixth floor and found the watch commander. A fat man eating a sandwich, with his shoeless feet up on a footstool.

“Where is she?” Jones said.

“Interrogation One,” he said, without looking up from his sandwich.

Interrogation rooms were the same across police precincts and states, even nations. They were made to give suspects a feeling they were in an alien environment. Somewhere foreign. Somewhere unkind. Then, the detectives would come in with smiles, promises, and offers of friendship. The rooms were intended to throw people off-balance in an ocean of discomfort so the detective working the case could be their lifeline.

Jones flipped a switch on the wall outside the room to turn on the camera.

The room was gray with a table, two chairs, and an old carpet. The camera was up in the corner.
A two-way mirror took up part of the wall.

Jones sat down across from the woman at the table. He had to take a moment and just watch her. She smiled at him; her lips were pink, her hair coming down over her shoulders. Jones felt himself getting aroused, though she’d done nothing to provoke it.

“Um…” He cleared his throat. “Heidi Rousseau?”

“Yes.”

Jones glanced to the camera in the corner. A small red light was blinking on top of it, indicating it was recording. “Date of birth, please?”

“June
twelfth, 1986.”

“Do you know why you’re here, Mrs. Rousseau?”

“Ms. And I don’t have a clue.”

He placed his elbows on the table. “Some crimes occurred involving two men. We have some information that you might have been involved. Do you know the men I’m talking about?”

She shook her head.

“Alex Waters and Hugh Neal. Do you know either of them?”

“No. Should I?”

“Do you work for an escort company here on the island? Baby Dolls?”

“I would never do that. Why do you ask?”

“Someone at Baby Dolls identified you as an escort there. I’m not judging you; I don’t care about that. But what I do care about is that they said you were with Alex Waters and Hugh Neal on the nights they were killed. Why do you think someone would say that?”

“I have no idea.” She glanced up to the camera. “I don’t know what this is about or why I’m here, but I’d like to talk to a lawyer now.”

He gritted his teeth and leaned back in the chair. “Fine. But I’m trying to help you. The DA listens to us. If you cooperate upfront, we can work something out.” He grinned. “Everybody gets pissed off. Sometimes bad things happen, I get that. And so will the DA. We’re not here to bully you or judge. We want to help you.”

“You can help me by getting my lawyer. Daniel Williams. I have his card in my purse, which your cop buddy outside took from me.”

Jones glared at her a moment. He stood up. “It’s late. Might be a while before we can get your lawyer here. Get comfy.” He stopped at the door. “Out of curiosity, how did you know you had an arrest warrant out for you?”

She shrugged. “Guardian angels, I guess.”

He stared at her a moment longer and then left.