Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

Forty-seven murders in six previous cities. Murder number forty-eight has happened in my precinct—or at least right next to it. Holy cow. He’s back.

I hate when bad people go free. My younger sister, Klarissa—already a star news reporter on a local TV station—says I get too uptight and worry about things I can’t control. Dad would have said that makes me a good cop. And now I’m on the primary investigative squad tracking a serial killer. That means I do have some control.

If I can keep my temper under control—and Internal Affairs doesn’t bust my chops.

8

I TURN THE ignition on my Miata; it starts right up. That’s a good thing because it’s been acting real funny for the past couple of months. I keep meaning to get it in the shop tomorrow, but tomorrow becomes today. I end up looking for parking spaces located on inclines, so if it won’t start, I roll it backward and pop the clutch in reverse. I’m glad I couldn’t afford an automatic transmission when I bought the thing slightly used. There would’ve been no clutch to pop. And it would’ve been a lot more expensive to repair. My biggest problem is finding inclines. Chicago is flat as a a pancake.

Don looked up my car online and said a salvaged starter will cost about 200 bucks. I could actually afford the starter if that was the total bill. But that doesn’t cover labor, which will be the same amount. I almost had enough put aside when I decided to switch from a standard-issue Glock service handgun to a Beretta.
For
900 bucks, I better shoot straighter.

I look at the cracked leather passenger seat and think about how hot this thing used to look. No major body damage but a small dent in the back left corner. There’s a little rust there now. Something else I don’t have money to fix.

I look down at my cell, which I left in the front passenger seat. Six missed calls. Great. Only one person that can be. I’ve been at the crime scene for four hours, still decked out in my torn, paint-stained sweatshirt. I realize now that I forgot to call Dell, my sort-of boy-friend, to let him know something had come up. He’s been after me to drive out of town about a hundred and fifty miles to see a historic Amish village. I’ve been putting him off. I think my new case qualifies as a good excuse; a great excuse, in fact. But after having used several lame excuses in previous weekends, he’ll just feel put off again. I could be honest and just tell him I’m not interested in eighteenth-century customs and furniture, even if they managed to make it all without metal nails or the aid of electricity. Mom keeps telling me that this sounds like a lot of fun. I think my point is made.

Dell gets offended pretty easily, even if he fights hard not to show it. He’s easy to read. Of course, I am a detective. Wonder if he feels put off because I always put him off? I met him at church six months ago, which I’ve been told—by my mom, of course—is a great place for single adults to meet members of the opposite sex with shared values and beliefs. I agree with all that, but it certainly doesn’t mean I’m morally obligated to fall for him, just because he’s good-looking, has a great job, drives an expensive car, and is very spiritual.

Maybe it’s the pressure I feel from everyone, including my sisters. Maybe it’s his name: Dell. I am thankful I haven’t met his parents yet because there’s a good chance I’d bring the name thing up. Maybe it is Dell’s earnest patience with me that sabotages my feelings for him. He basically says he’s there for me and is willing to wait until I feel the same about him. That’s a turnoff.

Kaylen says his patience with me is incredibly romantic. Yeah, whatever. And what’s with the Amish village thing? My mom says I always decide whether something will be fun or interesting before I give it a real chance—and that I’m often wrong. I don’t remember the being wrong part as much as she does.

I’ve missed one call from Kaylen and five from Dell. Did he call her to tattle on me? Three voice messages. I just hit the call-back option for Dell. I’m not crazy about him, but I do think I should explain what’s going on and why I’m missing our Saturday date. The ringtone bleats four times then clicks into voicemail: “You’ve reached the phone of Dell Woods . . .”

I jab the off button with my pointer finger. Better to listen to my voicemails from him first anyway. I do believe this is the first time Dell hasn’t picked up my call within the first two rings. I guess I made him mad. Good for him. It should make him mad. I don’t treat him as well as he deserves. If I don’t feel guilty, it’s because I’ve been honest with him all along, except for the Amish village thing. Besides, six months isn’t very long to really know who someone is.
Especially
when you refuse to let someone get to know you.

I’m on the entrance ramp to the cross-town expressway that will deliver me to my apartment and a hot shower in twenty minutes. I work through the gears quickly and have it in fifth before I’ve merged onto the highway. The Saturday night party crowd is still at home getting ready, so I have pretty light traffic to weave through.

Austin Reynolds of the FBI was pretty thorough on what we should expect when we got to the victim’s trendy townhouse. But I don’t think you can be thorough enough to prepare someone for the shock of what we saw.

I’ve been in homicide two years now. Got my promotion and gold detective shield a year earlier than my dad did. And plenty of people let me know that my dad is the reason I got bumped up so young. So I’ve seen my share of death and destruction. But whoever this guy is, he’s a sicko. He’s evil. I’m not positive the case is going to stay with Don and me, but I have some intense feelings coursing through my body and soul. I can physically feel something from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I’m angry, but it doesn’t feel like the lousy kind of anger I’ve been mired in the last couple months. Maybe I’m feeling a little of the holy anger Mom likes to brag about when talking about Democrats and the liberal bias in the media. All I know for sure is that I want to be the one to bring this guy in before he does any more damage. I won’t push his nose in the pavement, though.

• • •

I wrap one towel around my body and one around my hair after a thirty-minute shower. Got every last ounce of hot water there was. I’m fading fast now. I want to do my nails—a ten-minute job for me and an afternoon for media star Klarissa—but may not have the energy. I plop on my couch and pick up the remote. I’m debating between watching a TV show I recorded and just hitting the sack. Haven’t done a crossword in a week. My brain’s gonna turn to mashed potatoes.

I grabbed an oven-roasted turkey sandwich at Subway on my way home and then did a workout in my living room on a foam mat to blow off steam. I started with eagle jumps, but they make too much noise and I didn’t know if the old guy who lives below me was home or not—he has complained about me to management regularly since I moved here—so I only did one set of thirty. I shadowboxed with weighted gloves for ten minutes, keeping my fists at chin level the whole time—my arms were on fire the last two minutes. Then I did a core workout that had my abs screaming.

I look at the top of my left wrist. A thin line, dark rust down the middle and a few angry dots—from where the stitches got pulled—flank it on both sides. The doc said it will be almost impossible to see. My orthopod said the same thing about my right knee, which has a very noticeable road map of scars.

I look at my cell phone. No new messages. Dell still hasn’t called back. I left him a pretty detailed explanation, leaving out crime scene details, of course, but I suspect he has had his fill of my explanations and is throwing some passive-aggressive payback in my direction.

Good for him.

Sometimes, no matter how long of a shower you take, you just can’t feel clean. I toss the remote on my couch and head to the bedroom. I pick up a Lee Child novel I got at the library. I only make it through ten pages before my eyes get too heavy to continue. I turn off the light and pray, but sleep and prayer elude me.

He’s back
keeps echoing over and over in my mind.

9

The ChiTownVlogger

April 2, 6:03 a.m.

HE CLICKED REPLAY one more time before posting the video on his YouTube channel. From there it would travel seamlessly to his vlog site and over to more than a hundred thousand RSS feeds plus another couple hundred thousand direct subscribers.

Axl Rose screeched out the words “Welcome to the jungle” as the title DEATH IN THE CITY: NEW IN A THEATER NEAR YOU! rolled on the screen.

He was well-known in Chicagoland, having been news anchor at the city’s largest local TV station until he was fired. No reason was publically given, but a publicist for the station hinted that there had been “professional conduct issues.” There were rumors of a sexual harassment suit being settled quietly for big bucks. He would admit he drank a little too much in public—and maybe in private—but he knew he had never harassed a woman. Leave that for presidents and senators. He knew very well the real reason for his dismissal. He had packed on an extra thirty pounds. That coupled with a receding hairline, and long story short, he wasn’t as handsome as he used to be.

No matter. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. Now he had his own news show—a couple of two- or three-minute reports most days—and he could say whatever he wanted. With a million hits every twenty-four hours, he was making more money off of Google advertising dollars and a few small sponsors—well, the city’s largest Harley dealer wasn’t that small—than he did when he was with the mainstream media.

Go figure.

He watched himself carefully. He had leaned back in his battered office swivel chair, and looked right into the miniature digital camera he had set up on a tripod. He could have wetted down his white hair and run a comb through it, but no big deal. For his reports, he used no notes. He recorded them in one take, every time. He edited everything himself. Talk about low overhead. He watched himself. He wasn’t the striking figure he had been when he dreamed of anchoring the
CBS Evening News
, but his trademark baritone voice was deep and clear as ever. His blue-gray eyes had not lost their ability to bore into the hearts and minds of his viewers.

“Welcome to my jungle, friends and family, fans and foes. You are watching the ChiTownVlogger—Chicago’s number one source for news that matters. It’s the wee hours of the night, so good thing for you, I never sleep.

“I started getting some calls and texts and email messages late last night. Some very interesting—and very disturbing—chatter. So I reached out to people who are in the know in the mayor’s office and at Chicago Police headquarters—and no one wanted to talk to me. That hurt my feelings a little, but it made me even more curious about a potential story of blood and horror. You already know that when I get curious, it turns to suspicion. And when I get suspicious, I really go to work. Usually when people won’t talk to me it means they have something they want to hide. It also means our very own führer, the one and only Mayor Doyle, is doing his best Joseph Goebbels impression and trying to suppress your access to important news. Particularly news that doesn’t help his reelection campaign.

“After pulling strings for a couple hours, I learned that the mayor was awakened from his beauty sleep—not an easy task—and spent a long night on the phone with the director of the FBI in Washington, DC, and his favorite crony at the Chicago Police Department, Commissioner Fergosi.

“Good to know they’ll put in at least a little overtime since crime and violent crime is up in Chicagoland for a third straight year. What caught the mayor’s attention? No, they still haven’t captured the old lady who keeps letting her dog do a nasty deed on the sidewalk in front of city hall without scooping it. That wasn’t it.

“I did check with the big boys, the serious news sources, to see what they knew first. But when you’ve sold your soul to Chicago politicians and the Corporate States of America, you’re content not to know much. Case in point, they didn’t know what has caught the mayor’s attention either. They’re still asleep even as I speak.

“Let me make it simple, folks. You heard Sandra Reed was murdered. Maybe you weren’t paying attention—and that’s just what Mayor Doyle and Commissioner Fergosi hoped for. If you can remember her name and the report at all, you probably heard she was murdered in a dispute with her boyfriend.
Wrong.
She doesn’t even have a boyfriend. What Commissioner Fergosi and the men in blue don’t want you to know is this was no domestic dispute, no crime of passion, no simple shoot or stab murder.

“One of the fair maidens of our city was brutally cut up. Yeah. You heard me right. She was slashed and bled out in a gruesome death that might have been designed to last an entire night. Sadist? Satanist? Sicko? All of the above? Or a different kind of animal? You’ll know when I know. I don’t operate like Mayor Doyle. And I’ll know before ‘they’ know. You know who ‘they’ are.

“I won’t keep you any longer. So now you can go listen to the hacks from WGL, WCI, and the other
serious
news sources as they play catch-up with the ChiTownVlogger. Check back into my jungle soon. There’s a predator on the prowl.”

Satisfied, Allen Johnson hit the button to upload and publish his report.

I’m going to get a million hits before noon.

10