Deadly Dreams (39 page)

“We appreciate that.” McGuire shook his hand briefly. “This is Risa Chandler, a special consultant on the task force.”

The consultant. Walt shook her hand, too, was distracted for a moment when she looked at him. Damned if he’d ever seen eyes like that before on a woman. Almost gold, like a cat’s, with hair a couple shades darker hanging down to her shoulders. On the fuckable scale, she topped the charts.

He sat back down and the two settled across from him. Adrenaline flared. He waited for one of them to speak. No nervous talking from him.

“You’re familiar with the cases we’re working on.”

Chandler’s words weren’t a question but he answered anyway. “There’s not a cop on the force who’s not aware of it.”

She gave a nod. “Did you know any of the victims?”

He’d known this question would be asked and was ready for it. “Yeah, I knew Patrick Christiansen. Great guy. The best. Damned shame what happened to him. No one deserves to die that way.” Which wasn’t a lie. It’d taken a few hours for him to realize he’d have to own up to knowing Giovanni if he was asked. That damned fishing trip they’d gone on all those years ago. Everyone and their fucking sister had had a camera. He couldn’t be sure a picture wouldn’t surface with him in it.

“How well did you know him?”

He lifted a shoulder like it was no big deal. And it wasn’t. These two were strictly amateurs. He didn’t have to feign nonchalance. “I dunno. Long time. We fished together sometimes.”

“You went on trips together?”

“Went to the lake with him a couple times. Just on one overnight trip. Eight years or so, I guess it was. There were five of us.”

“Do you remember their names?”

He did, because he’d spent the afternoon tracking down the information. It didn’t matter if they had the names. None of them but he and Giovanni had been from the John Squad. “Paul Schwartz. Carmine Knowles. Ted Andersen. Frank Paulus.” He stopped, as if trying to remember. It’d seem rehearsed if he could rattle them off without any trouble. “Shit, what was that guy’s name?” He rubbed his jaw. “Big guy. Used to play hockey. Always had the jokes.” He shook his head, gave them a rueful smile. “It’ll come to me. When I’m not thinking about it.”

Chandler smiled back. “That’s how it goes, isn’t it?”

Oh yeah. Definitely fuckable.

“How’d you meet Christiansen?”

“At the gym. Probably fifteen years ago.” Which was a lie, but since they couldn’t check it out, it didn’t matter.

“Which gym?” McGuire wasn’t smiling. Maybe that was their playbook. Let the bitch act all warm and friendly, with that raspy voice of hers causing a man’s thoughts to stray far off path. Then the other cop digs for the details. The prick.

“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve belonged to several over the years and it was a long time ago.”

McGuire shoved a blank yellow tablet at him. “Would you mind writing down the names of the gyms you’ve belonged to? And the people you recall being on that trip with you and Christiansen.”

Walt wrote slowly as if trying to recall. Which he was, because the gym answer had been bullshit. He’d belonged to the same gym for nearly eighteen years. But he wrote down the names of a few others anyway. It’s not like they’d have records going that far back.

“Did you work with Detective Christiansen after shift?”

The blood in his veins turned icy. Sneaky bitch. The only other job Giovanni had had—that any of them had had—had been the work they’d done in the John Squad. “Huh?” If in doubt, play dumb.

“Christiansen and you. Did you work the same second job?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know about Pat, but I’ve never moonlighted. The department is more likely to sanction it these days, but frankly, I like my free time.”

“So he never said anything about a second job.” This from McGuire.

“Not to me.”

“But the two of you were close.” Chandler looked puzzled. “You were fishing buddies.”

“That’s right. But we’re not women.” His look invited McGuire to share in the joke. “We went fishing; we talked about fish. Not our life stories.”

“Maybe you did other things together, then,” she suggested. “What about sports? Poker?”

“Naw.” He relaxed a bit in his chair. “Just fishing.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

As if he didn’t have a ready answer for McGuire’s question, Walt rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling. “Man, I don’t know. Last year? Yeah, maybe last summer sometime. He called and asked if I wanted to go to Raystown with him.”

“So you say you were friends.” His attention switched to Chandler. She was smiling again but it was different this time. Cool. Not at all friendly. “Fishing buddies. Known him for years, you said.”

Definitely a bitch that needed to be shown her place. A different time, under different circumstances, Walt would have been glad to show it to her. “That’s right.”

“Then we’ll see you in the footage taken at his funeral? His memorial service?”

He stared at her, his mind racing. Hell no, he wouldn’t be on the footage. He hadn’t gone to any of the services because none of the John Squad were supposed to attend. That had been Hans’s idea. Dumbest thing in the world to get tied to the victims by showing up and having someone be able to place you there later, he’d said. Walt had pointed out that plenty of cops would go who didn’t know the victims. A show of support. But Hans had won that argument, at least Walt had thought so at the time. But who the hell knew if the others had followed the man’s orders?

He looked at the table. Let his jaw work, as if the question got him emotional. “I’m not good at that stuff.” A moment later he met her gaze head-on. “It just pisses me off, you know? Thinking of him dead, and like that? And the asshole is still out there. I wanted to go, but . . . I couldn’t handle it.” He let the words trail off. Suck on that, bitch.

“So Christiansen is the only victim you knew? Never met any of the others?”

Growing bored, Walt looked at Nate. Jesus, no wonder the killer was still out there. If this was all the department had to throw at the case, they were royally screwed. “That’s what I said.”

“Then maybe you can explain this.” The detective took a photo from his jacket pocket. Laid it on the table and nudged it toward him.

And his bowels went to water. Because it was the John Squad. Although only him, Johann and Sean were shown. And the shot of Sean was a blurry profile. But he and Johann were plainly depicted, if much younger. Walt no longer had to wonder how he’d come to their attention. First they must have identified Johann as Roland Parker. Dug around in the department ID photos and matched his to the picture.

Perspiration snaked down his back. He didn’t remember the date specifically, but he recalled the location. It’d been snapped at Tory’s. The summer of ’86.

About three weeks before he’d torched the place and let it burn with Lamont Fredericks locked in the apartment upstairs.

“He’s lying.”

Risa paced the length of the office and back, her movements jerky with frustration. “He knows it. He knows we know it. And there’s not a damn thing we can do it about it right now.”

Nate’s voice was grim. “I’ll talk to Morales, see if he can get us more. But we don’t have enough for warrants. Not yet. And you can bet the cocky little bastard realizes that, too.”

“He’s sweating, though.” The thought was the only thing that gave her a measure of satisfaction. That had been evident in the flush on that smug face. The tension in his squared-off body. “He was scrambling at the end, trying to backpedal.”

“Yeah, he was feeding us a line. None of the gyms he wrote down match the ones on file for Christiansen. But it’s within the realm of possibility that it’s like he says. A photo of him in a bar. That long ago, who remembers? Maybe you go with a friend, they have friends there, who also invite a friend.” Nate shrugged. “Bullshit, but plausible enough to prevent us from getting a warrant.”

She shot him a look, still fuming. “You’re taking this remarkably well.”

“We knew he wasn’t going to break down and confess.” His tone was practical. “We wanted to get an impression of him and we got it. He claims he never played poker with Christiansen, but his widow names him as one that her husband said he was playing cards with. We can figure they weren’t playing cards, and it’s not much of a stretch to guess what they were doing.”

“Running interference for local drug lords while taking a cut of their profits.”

He stopped then, narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re guessing.”

“An educated guess,” she corrected him. Risa propped a hip on his desk. “Not much else to do sitting in the hospital so I used my new phone to search the web. Found some articles on Lamont Fredericks. One of them said he was suspected of being involved in drug dealing in the neighborhood where he died.”

“He actually did time for it.” There were a pile of file folders on his desk. Unerringly he reached for one in the middle of the stack and flipped it open and then turned it around for her to look at. “Eight years for possession with intent. He’d been out ten years and was charged a couple times, but the charges ended up getting dropped.”

She folded her arms and studied the page in the folder. “So Fredericks was involved with dealing drugs and lived above Tory’s. Eggers, Parker, and unidentified friends hung out in Tory’s. Christiansen told his wife he was spending time with Eggers—who he referred to as Johnny—as well as others. Playing cards. We know Christiansen and Parker tucked away a tidy amount from a second job Eggers claims he knows nothing about.”

“From there on we’ve got assumptions.” Nate leaned back in his desk chair, hands hooked behind his neck. Risa was female enough to appreciate the way the pose showed off his muscled chest. Cop enough to resent noticing. “The victims—Parker, Tull, Christiansen, and Randolph—had something in common. Likely it was what they did off hours and equally likely it was illegal.”

“Drugs, Raiker guessed.” He’d been about to lodge another opinion when the shooting had started, she recalled sickly. “Fredericks got a couple drug charges dropped. How did he do that? Lose evidence? Get to the DA? With a cop shielding him, he might be able to manage either one. But this city is full of territory that has been carved out by dealers. If each member of the group took a cut from a different one . . . well, after a couple decades your wife has enough to buy beachfront property.”

“Okay.” Nate leaned forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “So was the tape in that video reused by the killer or were we meant to find it?”

“No one was ever seen in the vicinity returning for it, right?” She glanced questioningly at Nate and he shook his head. “And it occurs to me that our best leads in the case stem directly from the scene that hadn’t been taped over. Almost like the offender was sending us a message of exactly what was motivating these deaths.”
Justice had been a long time coming
. The snippet from the dream echoed in her mind. It had never left any doubt these were revenge killings. “Which brings us back to who would have filmed that original scene in the bar.”

“The cops had no reason to. The last thing they’d want is evidence of their relationship with one another.” He drummed his fingers for an instant. “It was most likely Tory Baltes or Lamont Fredericks.”

“And with both of them dead, who’s going to have possession of it? Either Juicy or Tory’s son.”

“Which is why we need to find and talk to them both.” Nate took out his cell phone and punched in a number. “But if you ask me, given his relationship to Lamont, Juicy has the best reason to hate these guys’ guts.”

The knowledge continued to burn through him, searing like a white flame.

Chandler had made it out alive.

He tapped his fingertips against the steering wheel, waited for a break in the incessant traffic. The shock at the discovery had long since passed. He’d had the fire rolling hot before he’d slipped out the back. He’d have thought she and the old lady would be toasty by dawn. Overcome by the smoke as they slept and burned to a crisp. All in all not a bad way to go. The smoke would kill them before they ever felt the kiss of the flames. There were a few dead police detectives who would agree they’d be getting off easy.