Sleep Don't Come Easy (13 page)

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Authors: Victor McGlothin

BOOK: Sleep Don't Come Easy
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Ivy
T
he sound of voices woke her up. The light from the street lamp in the alley filtered into the basement, as she strained to hear what was being said.
“. . . sample the wares . . . quality merchandise . . . don't make this difficult . . . more than generous . . .”
Moments later she heard the door at the top of the stairs open. Ivy's heart beat hard and fast, but she closed her eyes, steadied her breathing and pretended to be asleep. The next thing she knew, she was being pulled up by her wrists and dragged across the room to the bed behind the curtain.
Rape wasn't rape if you didn't make a big deal about it. Ivy had learned long ago, not to make a big deal about it. Some men didn't like that. This one was one of those men. He worked on her until he got a reaction—tears that she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. Thankfully he was the only one this time. The other man stood in the corner of the room and watched. When she looked back to him, though, he turned away.
“You keep this up, and she won't be so quality, man,” he told the man raping her. “I'll be upstairs when you get done,” he said before leaving.
They were taking her away from this place. Ivy sat in the corner of the room on the floor after it was over and willed herself to stop crying. It hadn't been so bad here. Ivy knew that there were worse places than this for girls like her and she dreaded even thinking about it.
A shadow crossed the small window and caught her attention. At first she was scared, but then she saw it again. She stood and slowly approached the window. That crazy old bum she'd seen the other day stood across the alley and stared back at her. Tears burned her eyes again as she pressed her hands flat against the glass, hoping he wasn't as crazy as he looked, and that he knew she was in trouble and needed his help.
He stood like a statue, watching her watch him.
Go get help, she wanted to scream. Get somebody! Get the police!
Snow fell lightly to the ground around him and on his eyebrows and beard, making him look like a poor excuse for Santa Claus. Then suddenly, he surprised her and walked towards the window. The old bum dropped down to his knees and peered at her, then squinted trying to see into the room behind her. He looked even more ancient up close, except for his eyes. His eyes were clear, and young, and inquisitive.
He jerked and looked down the alley like someone was coming, and the old man quickly rose to his feet, and disappeared. No! Don't go! Ivy nearly choked on those words, as she watched him leave. Ivy had been really brave for a long time. But she didn't feel so brave now, and she crawled into bed, buried her face in the dingy pillow and cried herself to sleep.
Fall from Grace
T
he television was on, but while Bruce stared at it, he had no idea what was on it. He was losing it. That heightened sense of situations and people that led him to solve the kinds of cases that left other detectives shaking their heads. Ten years ago, he was a bloodhound. Bruce found evidence where it looked like none existed. He pieced together the puzzles of events and lives and circumstances of crime scenes, studying them from the perspective of a man with a gift that could only come from God.
He'd solved cases more difficult than this. And it pissed him off because on the surface there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about the murder of Toni Robbins, and solving it should've been a piece of cake. Everybody was starting to look at him sideways. His captain, colleagues, and the media were taking advantage of the fact that time had stopped being on his side.
What's taking so long to solve this case, Detective?
Do you have any leads on who might've killed this woman?
The public wants answers, Detective Baldwin. What do you have to say?
He said nothing, because he knew nothing. Anybody remotely suspected had an alibi, and he was beginning to think that maybe her death was random after all. As he'd done so many times before, Baldwin closed his eyes and mentally retraced Toni's last night alive.
She'd gotten off work at five, walked six blocks to The Broadway Shelter, played kissy face with her man, chatted it up with some other volunteers, and said hello to some folks waiting in line to eat. At six, she helped to serve the evening meal. Seven-thirty, she read stories to some kids, reassured some woman who, along with her four kids, had been evicted from her one-bedroom apartment, that everything would be all right, said good night to the staff and boyfriend, and finally walked out of the door, headed back to her car parked in a lot halfway between her job and the shelter. She was found early the next morning underneath the Corona and Speer overpass.
Denver's honorable mayor was attending a fundraiser the night she was killed, as attested to by three hundred of his fondest admirers and lovely wife. Nelson Monroe left the shelter around nine–thirty. He gave one of his volunteers a ride home, stopped at the ATM on his way home, and held a brief conversation with a neighbor on the elevator who lived next door to him.
No evidence had been found near the crime scene. Not a damn thing. There had been shoe prints in the snow, but by the time the cops showed up, snow had covered them and the city's finest had trampled over any potential evidence buried underneath it. Whoever killed her wore gloves. He didn't rape her, or hit her, or abuse her, other than to choke the life out of her. It was almost as if he were careful. Baldwin opened his eyes. It was almost as if he cared. Before he had a chance to decipher this revelation, his phone rang.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly.
It was his friend from vice, Dan Goodwin. “Tell me you can be up and out the door in thirty seconds or less.”
“Why? What's up?”
“Man! You are not going to believe who we got in handcuffs for soliciting sex from an underage girl he found over the Internet.”
Baldwin bolted up from the sofa. “Where?”
He was out the door and in his car speeding across town with the light flashing in the window. Baldwin headed west towards Lakewood, to a seedy motel on West Sixth Avenue. All he had to do was follow the parade of lights illuminating the scene like it was a holiday party. News cameras were out in full force, and in the back seat of one of the squad cars he passed, Baldwin caught a glimpse of a man he thought looked like Mayor Shaw. He stopped, leaned down and peered at the man to be sure. Shaw glanced at him, then turned his head away.
Goodwin spotted Bruce. “Baldwin!” He waved him over. A female officer was escorting a frightened Hispanic teenage girl to another squad car. The girl was trembling despite the blanket she'd been wrapped in.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Baldwin said dismayed.
Goodwin shook his head. “I wish I was, man. This is some shit for sure.”
“How old is that kid?”
“Fifteen. Doesn't speak English either. Her mother sent her here to live with relatives, only the girl never made it to any relatives.”
“How the hell did he find her?”
Goodwin looked shocked that Baldwin would be so naïve. “I told you, man. The World Wide Web—
www.younghotchick.com
. It's all the rage among pedophiles. Or hadn't you heard?”
Bruce scratched his head. “Sounds like some fucked up eBay shit if you ask me.”
“Not quite, but . . . our mayor here has been busy. Careful, but not careful enough. He's a pompous sonofabitch, though, thought he was too slick to get caught.”
“How long have you been on to him?”
Dan chuckled. “Hell, we were never on to him. We just got lucky as hell. Went fishing for a good-sized trout and came out with a fucking shark.”
“Who called the piranha?” Baldwin asked, referring to the media.
Goodwin gave him a sly look. “He pissed me off.”
Baldwin stared at him in disbelief. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, man.”
 
Lucas was numb. The whole scene unraveled around him like a movie he was watching on late night television. News cameras surrounded him, flashing lights in his face, pointing fingers, shaking their heads, talking so fast, their tongues couldn't keep up. He hadn't known that girl was so young, but he knew she was young enough. He'd told himself that if she looked too young, he'd walk away, but deep down, he knew it was a lie. His wife had taken one of her sleeping pills so she'd get the news first thing in the morning like everyone else in the city. Lisa hated drama. She hated when things weren't perfect and to be embarrassed in any way. He watched them put that child in the back of that patrol car and breathed a sigh of relief. If he had touched her, he would've never been able to forgive himself.
Lucas had always dreamed big. He'd dreamed of becoming a national hero, a figurehead, respected, admired, loved by everyone who'd ever shaken his hand. The reality of what he'd become was a hell of a lot more frightening.
Daily Bread
T
odd had left her a message on her cell phone at four in the morning:
“Where the hell are you? One of the biggest scandals in the history of Denver just came to light and you're no where to be found. When you finally peel your ass out from between those sheets, turn on the television to any damn channel you please. The story's gonna be on every last one of them.”
She sat in front of the television for hours, flipping channels, watching report after report, commentary after commentary on the incriminating acts of the city's Mayor. He'd fallen like a star from heaven, and still managed to look like a rock star, even in his mug shot. The man's smug expression dug deep down into the core of Fatema, and she cringed just thinking about the fact that she'd spent any time alone with him at all, and that Toni had actually been intimate with the creep.
One woman outside the precinct where he'd been taken reported:
“Inside sources say that the mayor has admitted to soliciting what he thought was an adult woman, and that he had no idea the girl was underage and being held against her will.”
Of course, every so-called expert who'd ever taken a high school psychology class had to chime in with their opinions:
“It's highly unlikely that he didn't know. Pedophiles are predators. They hunt for their prey and they know where to find it. I doubt his claim that this was his first encounter with a child.”
“It's a disease. And men like Lucas Shaw hide behind the order in their lives, and their success, covering up the truth of who they are and choosing to turn away from their transgressions rather than to face them head-on and take action to correct the behavior.”
Toni knew. Somehow, she'd found out and that was the reason she'd left him. Fatema shuddered and tears unexpectedly stung her eyes.
“Oh, dear God,” she gasped.
In the e-mails she'd saved on her computer, Toni had called him disgusting and told him that he needed help. If a man like Lucas Shaw had felt threatened that his secret would get out, how far would he go to stop it?
They flashed his photograph and images of him being escorted into the precinct in handcuffs. Fatema fixed on his face, particularly his eyes—cobalt, hard, and even after everything that had unfolded on national television, she saw in his eyes a man who was convinced that he was still untouchable.
 
That afternoon, she hurried over to The Broadway knowing that Nelson would be there. It was relatively quiet at the shelter, except for the sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen.
A few of the volunteers were busy preparing dinner when she walked in. “Hello.” Fatema smiled. They looked as stunned as she felt. “Is Nelson here?”
“He's in his office,” one of them responded quietly.
Nelson's door was open. The man was like a stone, sitting with his back to her, staring out of the window at a brick wall on the building next door.
“You heard?” she asked, trying not to startle him.
He didn't turn around.
“We own that building,” he said, solemnly. “The plan is to make it livable to give people a place to stay until they can get back on their feet.” Nelson sounded so defeated.
“I really believe Shaw killed her, Nelson.” Fatema walked up behind him and pressed her hands on his shoulders. Nelson reached up and touched one of them.
“That's some pretty messed up shit.” His voice cracked.
Fatema sat down in the chair across from his desk. Neither one of them knew what to say exactly and so they sat reflectively not saying anything for some time.
“I think Toni knew about him,” she said quietly. “I think she found out what he was doing.”
“Maybe she did,” he said simply.
“And,” she continued hesitantly, “I think he killed her because of it.”
Nelson stared at her. “You think he's a child molester and a murderer.”
She shrugged. “Don't you?” She waited for an answer, but Nelson's answer came in the form of an averted gaze. “It's the only thing that makes sense, Nelson. She didn't stop seeing him because he was married. She stopped seeing him because he's, for lack of a better term, perverted. The man solicits children on the Net. He's mayor of a big city. His career is planned out all the way up to the Senate level. Not to mention the wife and kids. Who else would have a better reason for killing her?”
“They say that kid was a sex slave, bought and paid for a hundred times by men like him. Do you think he knew?”
“I don't know. But Toni must have suspected something because she was obsessed with human trafficking. Maybe that's why.”
“Do you think the police suspect him?”
“If they don't, by the time I'm finished talking to them, they will.”
“They need to solve her murder, Fatema.” Nelson looked like a man weighted down and tired. “I feel like someone's left the door open on my life, and until it's closed, I can't move forward.”
Fatema walked over to him, and held him. “I know, Nelson. I feel the same way.”
“She was the one. Know what I'm saying?”
“Yeah. I do.”
Fatema eventually left on a mission to see Bruce Baldwin. If he had any kind of common sense whatsoever, he'd have figured this out by now, and she'd be wasting a trip. Heading west on 14th Avenue, Fatema spotted Lazarus crossing in front of her half a block ahead on Delaware Street. Without even thinking, she turned abruptly onto Delaware and quickly pulled into an illegal parking spot on a side street a few blocks behind him. Fatema jumped out of the car and hurried to catch up with him. For an old man, Lazarus moved fast, and for every two of her steps, he took one. She called after him, but he didn't stop. The thought that Baldwin had suspected Lazarus for murdering Toni had been absurd, and she couldn't wait to look him in the eyes and make sure he knew how out of line he'd been.
“Lazarus!” she called again. The old man seemed to pick up the pace, until Fatema was practically running. He turned right onto Washington, and right again. By the time she caught up with him, Fatema was out of breath.
“Hey, Lazarus,” she said, still struggling to keep up with him. “Where you going?”
He ignored her and never said a word. There was something determined about him. She knew he'd heard her by the way he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but he seemed to be a man on a mission, and he didn't deter her from coming along. Fatema followed without saying another word. He led her back to West 14
th
and they walked for another four blocks into an alleyway between Lincoln and Sherman. Fatema recognized the back of one building as being The Broadway Shelter. Suddenly, Lazarus stopped and stared down at a small window of the basement of an old brick townhouse. She realized she was standing right below Nelson's office.
Lazarus stared fixated on a small, dark window near the dumpster and he waited. Moments later, a ghost appeared. Red rimmed eyes, oily brown hair, a narrow face with sallow skin stared back at first him, and then Fatema. Tears streamed down her face as she mouthed slowly,
Help me
.
“Is she real, Sweet Thang?” Lazarus asked, staring at the girl. “Or is this old man just seeing things?”
“She's real, Lazarus.”
“She got some pretty lips,” Lazarus said.
“Yes,” Fatema responded, stunned. “She certainly does.” She looked up and saw Nelson's office.

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