Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (35 page)

‘So you flew me all the way here using tax dollars just to answer a few questions.’ I made my disapproval show. ‘Haven’t you boys heard of the telephone?’

Blom spoke up: ‘It’s for a visual confirmation.’ He looked Scandinavian but sounded New England.

‘We need to know if it’s the same killer.’ Wong said.

‘My killer? The Undertaker? Haven’t you heard? He’s operating in LA. What makes you think it’s him?’

‘This.’

Wong held up a clear plastic evidence bag.

97

^{___________________________}

Cool as a cucumber, the killer also known as Randall Fisk waited until the FBI entourage had passed before exchanging his winnings at one of the mobile cashier trolleys. Then he sauntered casually and inconspicuously towards the elevator area.

A pair of grim-faced Deputies from the Sheriff’s Department were turning people away. No access to the upper floors. One particularly loud black girl in an equally loud party frock was demanding to be allowed up to her room. She’d paid good money. She needed the bathroom. Her daddy had influence. But the cops were having none of it. Her boyfriend was less aggressive. He was hanging back, encouraging her withdrawal in soft syllables.

She’d been drinking. They didn’t look twenty-one.

He spied his chance and shouldered open an unmarked door.

The Deputies were so busy guarding the elevators, they’d forgotten about the stairwell.

Life was all about taking risks.

And Vegas was the risk capital of the world.

With a nub of amphetamine dissolving under his tongue, the killer leapt up the stairs three at a time.

98

^{___________________________}

A second later, the blood thawed as hot anger surged through my veins. I snatched the bag from Wong’s hand. Stared with disbelieving eyes. I didn’t want to think about it. But knew it could only mean one thing.

‘Where did you find this?’

‘Tucked inside her underwear.’ Wong seemed to exact a degree of pleasure from the remark.

‘Like a call girl’s tip.’ Blom added.

Again, I stared with disbelieving eyes. Trying to muster up a rational explanation. But there is only so much disbelieving the eyes can do before they have to accept what they’re seeing.

 
I folded the bag. Shoved it in a pocket.

‘Show me.’ I SAID.

Wong waved me inside.

The air was stuffy in the room on the nineteenth floor of
The MGM Grand Hotel and Casino
in Las Vegas
.
Like an attic in the midst of summer. Both the nets and the long orange drapes were pulled right back, I saw, allowing bright daylight to sober up the proceedings.

I rolled over the plush carpeting. Wong and his three cohorts tight on my heels.

I didn’t want to think about the bag in my pocket. But I could feel it weighing heavily. Pulling me down.

The focus of the room was the big King bed in the middle. A pair of Crime Lab techs were circling it like buzzards: one taking pictures, the other tweezing evidence samples from the exposed flat sheet.

I floated closer.

There was a woman lying on the bed in the customary pose of interment. Skin paled into the bluish hue of rigor mortis. She was a big girl – over two hundred pounds – but her killer had had no trouble hoisting her onto the thick mattress. He’d also scratched a cross of ash on her brow. Scattered red rose petals on the white bed sheet. I knew at a glance we were dealing with the same killer.

The Undertaker
had come to Vegas.

But things were different here.

Unlike with his previous victims, the killer had stripped the woman down to her discolored underwear. Smeared her folded arms in what looked like blood. Didn’t know whose blood. No visible signs of cuts that I could see. So much blood in fact that it looked like she was wearing red gloves up to the elbows.

Morbid fascination drew me closer.

Where the sticky liquid had come into contact with her bra, it had seeped into the cotton fabric to form small crimson flowers.

The Undertaker
had tweaked his MO.

‘It’s him.’ I said.

‘Then I’ll need all your case notes, Quinn. By lunchtime. Everything you have. This is now an FBI investigation.’

There was something leaning against the headboard. A photograph. I took out glasses and peered closer. It was a picture of four people: three men, one woman. Sitting in a row of red seats bolted to a framework of white tubular bars. Their features were blurred by motion. One of those shots taken on a rollercoaster. When you look your least favorable. I recognized two people in the shot: the dead woman lying on the bed and the guy I’d seen an hour ago on the Ramada surveillance tape. He was wearing a black baseball cap. Face tilted strategically down at his feet.

‘Why are you boys so interested in this, Wong?’

‘That’s classified Bureau business. You’re officially excused, Quinn. Agents Cherry and Stubbs will escort you back to LA. I’ll take it from here.’

‘No.’ I said.

Wong’s eyebrows would have lifted in unison, had he had any.

‘This is my case.’ I said. ‘Get me Hugh Winters on the phone right now.’

‘No can do. SAC Winters has personally placed me in charge of this investigation. You’re so far outside of your jurisdiction, Quinn, a meter maid has more power here than you. Now go home before you embarrass yourself.’

Wong snapped girly fingers and Blom descended like a falling wall. The big guy with the buzz-cut tried to grab me by the shoulders. I side-stepped. He was big but slow.

‘Since when is the Bureau interested in a murdered conventioneer from Boise, Idaho?’

‘Since she’s the niece of Norman Fuller.’ Thundered a voice from the doorway.

99

^{___________________________}

No one in the room so much as twitched. All eyes were on the new guy in the doorway. He had a smoldering cigarette wedged in the corner of a cocky smile.

‘Is this little shindig for members only,’ the new guy said, ‘or can anyone join the party?’

Wong was the first to come out of hibernation: ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘That’s my good friend Bill Teague.’ I told Pinch Face. ‘And you fellas are officially in big trouble.’

I saw Wong’s lips twist in the way that lips twist when the tongue tastes something unsavory. He began to advance on Bill. For a moment I thought they were going to lock horns like sparring rams. But Bill was the epitome of unflustered. As Wong approached, he reached out and flicked the Fed on the tip of his nose. Stopping him in his tracks. Wong’s toes must have curled up inside his patent-leathers. I saw him reach inside his jacket. But Bill’s reactions were magician-quick. He caught Wong by the wrist and twisted it, hard.

Wong’s face pinched itself into a point where even light couldn’t escape.

‘Now don’t go pissing yourself in front of your girlfriends.’ Bill whispered in his ear.

Then everything happened in a bit of a blur.

I saw Cherry reach for his sidearm. But Bill already had him figured. He pushed Wong aside and karate-kicked Cherry clean in the midriff. The big guy loosed some wind and folded like a bad hand of poker. He slumped to the deck. Clutching his stomach. Wheezing like a busted gasket.

Then Stubbs dived in.

Nimbly, Bill side-stepped the knucklehead. Grabbed him by the scruff of his neck as he sailed past. Leaned his weight into Stubbs’ lunge. And sent the Fed crashing into the wall.

I sensed Blom coil himself up. Ready to pounce. I sank an elbow into his solar plexus and he sank to the bed.

Wong was nursing his sprained wrist. ‘You asshole!’ he yelped. ‘You broke my arm!’

Bill pressed his ID against the Fed’s nose. ‘I may be an asshole,’ he said, ‘but I’m also your superior, asshole. Now listen up, ladies. For those of you who are hard of learning, I’m SAC William Teague. Of the Violent Crimes Division.’ He emphasized the word
Violent
in a way that electrified the already tense atmosphere. ‘So you don’t want to be trying to have sex with me without my fucking permission. Director Fuller has personally asked me to take charge of this investigation as of now. Detective Quinn is my right-hand man. Which means no one so much as farts without clearing it with me or him first. Now, any of you limp dicks have a problem with that?’

He took a drag on his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke at Agent Wong. ‘Well, Agent Wrong?’

‘This is a crime scene.’ Pinch Face growled.

‘Well blow me for brunch.’ Bill said. ‘For a moment I thought you were going to say it was a no-smoking room.’

100

^{___________________________}

‘Now go play with your dolls.’ Bill said, shooing the Feds out of the room. ‘You heard me. Skedaddle. I’ll call when I need you.’

The sorry-looking quartet picked themselves up. Dusted themselves down. And left the room.

It was only as the Feds had gone that I remembered the two CSU techs. They were standing stock-still, up against the window, uncertain which way to jump.

‘Go back about your business.’ I said as I dabbed at the sweat suddenly streaming down my face. ‘Fun’s over for today.’

Somehow I didn’t believe my own words.

Fifteen minutes later Bill and I were sitting at table outside a bar set amid narrow reconstructed New York City streets. Indoors. My head was splitting. I’d downed aspirin. I shouldn’t have been drinking. But there hadn’t seemed any good alternative at the time Bill had suggested it.

‘You need to see a doctor.’ Bill said. ‘Or an undertaker.’

I raised my bottle. ‘Very funny, Bill. So what gives? Last I heard you were on your way to Bakersfield.’

‘And doing very nicely, thank you very much. Then your boy went and murdered Patsy Hoagland and I got a call from the Director.’