The Tangerine Killer (15 page)

“You need to go and interrogate my mother.”

Olin had called and asked me to meet him at the diner for lunch to compare notes. I knew I couldn’t keep the baby thing a secret any longer or the fact that my own mother knew things she wasn’t telling me. I couldn’t go near her house again. Olin could deal with her. He’d done alright with Faye. If he could handle that train wreck then he could certainly handle my mother. I felt a little warm and fuzzy inside at the prospect of Olin handcuffing her and dragging her down to the station to interrogate.

“Your Mother?” He looked confused.

“Yeah you heard it right the first time.”

I poked at the dried out bun of my burger and wondered why I hadn’t ordered something a little more palatable. The meat was greasy and the fries were soggy but Olin had ordered the same and tucked in with the gusto of a famished man. When he finished his own plate, I pushed mine towards him and he attacked it without pause. The other diners around us were also tucking into their equally greasy meals. I just felt nauseous.

“So what does she have to do with all this?” he asked, his mouth half full of food.

“I’m not sure but she knows more about this than she’s telling.”

I pushed the photograph of Lisa, Frank and the baby across the table and Olin stopped eating for a second to get a better look. He didn’t ask me where I got it or how long I had been withholding it, he just shrugged.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

It was true I had no evidence or proof that the mysterious baby actually had anything to do with the case at all but the more I looked at it, the worse I felt. In my mind that was proof enough.

“According to Harvey, the baby died of sudden infant death but Jill said Lisa wouldn’t have killed herself because she was about to get her daughter back. Then my mother said Frank wasn’t the father. This is where it all began, I feel it in my gut.” I flicked the photograph with my fingernail.

Olin continued to eat. I guessed he was thinking but I couldn’t be sure. I sank back in my vinyl seat and swallowed another painkiller with some lukewarm coffee. This time I didn’t care if he saw me. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t be able to get up. I was exhausted and everything hurt. I just wanted to go back home where nobody knew me and if they did, they still didn’t give a damn. Everything here was far too complicated. Maybe my mother was right. I could still leave if I really wanted to.

“Look, we’re just not getting anywhere.”

Olin finally finished eating and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

“We keep going round and round questioning people but no one is telling us a thing. I spent all morning looking for Harvey and I came up with nothing. We have to get some dirt on these people if we want them to talk.”

“Blackmail? Isn’t that a bit below the belt for the police force?”

“What other choice do we have? We’ve got to start twisting some arms here, make people nervous, get them to rat each other out. If we don’t get a lead on where this bastard is hiding out then pretty soon I’ll have another dead body on my hands and they’re already full making sure he doesn’t snatch you.”

“Well you’re not the only one working this case. What have the other guys come up with?”

Olin looked uncomfortable.

“The lab is still working on the other finger. The guys narrowed down several possible locations they thought may have been the hideout but they were all empty and the explosion pretty much obliterated any evidence that might have been at the shack.”

“Did they find any bodies?”

“Pieces. They’re working on identifying them now.”

“Okay. So what is it you’re not telling me?”

Olin picked at the edge of the table where the surface was starting to peel.

“Why did you see Joe again after he was dragged out of your room on a stretcher? I have a report sitting on my desk that says witnesses saw you and him having drinks. What’s that about?”

I was livid. I should have known all along they would waste precious time and resources investigating me instead of tracking down the real criminal.

“My personal life is not part of this investigation."

“But you are and that means we have to look into anyone in your past who might want to hurt you.”

“I’m a private investigator. I’ve pissed off a lot of people, too many to count. Most of them would probably delight in misfortune coming my way.”

“And the men you’ve slept with?”

“Are none of your business,” I said.

“But they are part of this investigation.”

“My sex life isn’t on trial here.”

“I’m sorry but it is.”

He glared at me and I looked away. God damn it. I didn’t want Olin to know what a piece of shit I was when it came to men.

“I was right all along, wasn’t I? We were never really partners. You were just babysitting me. Making sure my own investigation didn’t interfere with yours. Or maybe you hoped I’d lead you right to him.”

I stood up to storm off, wishing I’d eaten my own crap burger and mushy fries and not given them to the man who had been lying to me. Deep down I knew a small part of me had started to fall for him and that had clouded my judgment. At least now I knew where I stood. By myself, just like always.

I turned and said. “Not that you’d believe me but I was telling Joe to fuck off, okay?”

“So why didn’t you just tell me that?”

I didn’t answer. I knew that when it came to men I was about as self-destructive as you could get. From the moment I met Olin I wanted him and I had been doing everything in my power since then to stop that from happening.

“Goodbye Olin. I expect I’ll be seeing you some time after I’m abducted.”

“Wait,” he said. “You can’t leave.”

“Why? Am I under arrest?”

“No. Don’t do this Sam. Don’t push me away like this. I know you’re hurt and confused but you don’t need to do this on your own.”

I looked straight into those damned soft brown eyes and tried to see into his heart, into his soul. He was a good man, I knew that. All I was doing was hurting him. It was better for him if I wasn’t around.

“I’ve always been alone,” I said.

I left the diner with my head held high and didn’t look back. Olin didn’t follow and he wouldn’t have changed my mind even if he had. Perhaps the best plan would be to leave this shit hole of a town behind like my mother suggested and go somewhere the killer would never find me. I had money. An extended stay on a nice sandy island would probably do the trick or maybe a luxury cruise. Just long enough for him to forget all about me and snatch someone else instead or better yet give up and move on. Devise some other dastardly plan that had nothing to do with me and the people I knew.

But Jill was still out there somewhere and alive or not, I felt I owed it to her to find the man who had abducted her and make him pay. At least with the police off my ass I would be free to dole out my own brand of punishment. I felt the vigilante in me taking over. I knew I had my mother to thank for that.

Alone again. Free to smoke my cigarettes, pop my painkillers and go wherever I pleased. So why did I feel like shit? Surely it was just my bruised ribs, burnt skin and concussed head but deep down I knew it was more than that. I’d been alone my whole life. I never depended on anyone and I used people to get what I wanted. Information. Money. Sex. It had all been the same to me. But Olin had been different. I hadn’t used or abused him. For a few days I hadn’t been completely alone and I liked it. Now I felt like a part of my insides had been ripped out.

Olin hadn’t been able to track down Harvey so I sure as hell would. I’d show him that I didn’t need his help. But first I needed sleep, in my own makeshift accommodations at the Golden Sun Motel. I was actually starting to miss the place. It was beginning to feel like home. My night on Olin’s couch had not been the best of my life. He could have at least made an effort to give me his bed.

My room was clean and quiet. No mysteriously bleeding packages or exploding bombs. I fell onto my bed fully clothed and drifted off into a dreamless, peaceful sleep after numbing the pain with some more pills and a chaser of booze for good measure.

In my dream I walked through the woods, carrying something heavy. A dead weight. A dead body. I carried it easily with arms that weren’t my own. Looked down at the blood stained nightgown and smiled. One arm hung out. A hand with two bloody stumps where fingers should have been. I woke up screaming.

The room was still dark, only lit by the flickering orange glow from the giant neon sign outside. I felt stiff and sore and strangely wet. I shifted gingerly, knowing something was terribly wrong. My fingers skimmed the surface of the pool I lay in and I rubbed them together. It was blood, thick and sticky between my fingers. Suddenly scared I frantically tried to imagine which part of me was bleeding. With the amount of blood it had to be pretty serious. Damn it. Olin was right. I should have gone to the hospital after all. I must have been seriously injured in the explosion and now I was going to die laying right there in my orange motel room, all alone at the end of my life. If Olin hadn’t pissed me off then I could have been with him. He would have noticed something was wrong and called an ambulance but it was too late for that now.

As I lay there panicked and too scared to move, it dawned on me that I wasn’t in any more pain than I had been before I fell asleep. Surely I should have been in agony at the amount of blood I had lost or at least light headed and delirious. As I slowly turned to sit up I bumped into something lying next to me on the bed. My breath caught in my throat and I had to clutch onto the mattress to stop from falling as I scrambled to get away from the dead body that lay beside me.

 
I didn’t call Olin. I refused to give him the satisfaction of being the first one on the scene so I dialed 911 instead. I knew it would really piss him off to find out that the deputies in the nearest squad car would be the ones to get there first and not him.

After I got over the initial shock, my nightmare flooded back. It was him. I’d been him. Carrying Jill to my room. But how the hell did he get in? The door was still locked just as I had left it. How on earth could he have got into my room and why didn’t I wake up? My gun still lay on the table by the bed where I left it before falling asleep. Why hadn’t he killed me or at the very least abducted me right then and there? After all I was his next victim, I had been alone. What had stopped him from taking me?

“Oh God!”

The two deputies who arrived in a flash of lights and blaring sirens were both younger than I was and clearly fresh on the job. I could tell this was their first murder by the way the shorter of the two turned a violent shade of green and the other put his hand over his mouth.

“Step away from the victim and put your hands where I can see them.” The shorter of the two finally managed to speak.

Vasquez and Watson, according to their nametags, were clearly overwhelmed at the amount of blood that covered the body, the bed and me. I knew their first instinct would be to assume I had committed the murder.

“I didn’t do this,” I warned. “I’m the next person on the Tangerine killers list of most wanted victims. He’s baiting me.”

“Put your hands where I can see them or I’ll shoot.”

Watson drew his revolver and pointed it at me. I didn’t bother and point out that the safety was still on. He was young and nervous. I wouldn’t put it past either one of them to shoot me out of sheer panic. I didn’t need a bullet wound to add to my growing list of injuries.

“Just relax guys.”

I put my hands on top of my head and Vasquez surged forward. He grabbed my hands and thrust them down behind my back to handcuff me. I cried out in pain at the way the torque in my body set my ribcage on fire. Vasquez apparently didn’t care. I think he was just relieved that I was finally detained and not going to kill them.

“Sit down. Shut up.”

“Where is it you want me to sit? On the bed with Jill and all the evidence? In case you hadn’t noticed there are no chairs in this room.”

“Jill? Jill who?”

Watson had a high pitched voice and a freshly grown goatee, which he pulled on nervously.

“Her name is Jill Hatchel. She was recently abducted by a serial killer. I’m sure you guys have heard about the case. Everyone’s working on it.”

Everyone may have been working on it but street cops like Watson and Vasquez were clearly out of the loop. They looked from me to the body and back again. I had to admit that I had a hard time taking my eyes off the body as well.

Jill had been posed on the bed like a clothes store mannequin. She lay in the same position I had been in when I woke up, on the left side with her arms crossed over her chest. The hand which was missing two fingers had been placed on the white cotton pillowcase beside her face. She was wearing a white lace nightgown. It was stained through with blood and so was the bedspread.

My entire left side was also covered with blood where it had seeped through my clothes. I had to admit it looked pretty incriminating but I had left everything exactly as it had been when I woke up. Damned if I was going to disturb any evidence. Once I got over the initial shock of finding a dead body in my bed I was sure the killer had made a mistake. In leaving this gift for me, he must have left some incriminating evidence somewhere.

“What’s your name?” Vasquez said.

“Sam Weber.”

“Sam Weber you are under arrest for the murder of Jill
Heichel
. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say and do will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you.”

As Vasquez read me my rights I wondered how long it would be before Olin appeared and released me. I guessed I should have called him after all. That’s what I got for my own foolish pride.

“I can’t find a murder weapon,” Watson said.

“That’s because I didn’t kill her,” I said.

“Shut up. Vasquez, put her in the squad car.”

“Come on.”

Vasquez shoved me in the back of the car and I was left staring at the metal grill which separated the backseat from the front. I wondered how much force it would take to kick it out with my feet but only for a second. I just had to be patient. They would have to release me eventually and I wanted to get all the brownie points I could for my martyrdom.