A Bullet for Carlos (23 page)

“I don’t say it…but there were times when I thought it.”

“When?”

“Early on, when you first got promoted. You earned it though. Now I’d kick anybody’s ass who said something otherwise.”

“And what about if somebody said I only give you the choice assignments because you’re a damn redneck good old boy? How would you feel?”

“Like a damn redneck good old boy, I guess. How do I know?” He looked Renkin straight in the eyes. “You can’t take me off. This fucker killed three women and, he—”

Renkin threw his hands up in the air. “All right. I’ll keep you on the case, but I swear…”

Tip took a few seconds to gather himself, then he blew Renkin a kiss. “John, you’re a good man. I won’t let you down.”

Renkin shook his head. “You better not. One more thing,
anything
, and you’re off the case for good.”

Tip walked back along
the same path he took earlier. The walk seemed even longer this time, and the day, which had started out so great, had turned to shit.
Damn bitch reporter.
He wished he’d never seen her that night at Mollie’s. Her ass wasn’t even that nice.

“Tip,” a voice from behind him called.

He stopped and turned, then forced a friendly greeting. “Tony, how are you, man? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Not since the good old days.”

“I don’t know if I’d call them good, but they were crazy.” Tip almost laughed. Almost. “You tired of HPD yet? Ready to come back?”

“Man, you know I can’t give this up. Promised my mom.”

Tip nodded, remembering when Tony’s brother died from an overdose. “So what brings you to the station?”

“Need to see somebody.”

“All right,” Tip said, and punched his arm lightly. “Hate to run, Tony, but I got things to do. I’ll see you around.”

“You got it.” As Tip started down the hall, Tony called to him. “What did you do to deserve such a good-looking partner?”

“Just bein’ me,” Tip said, then he put away his smile and continued to his desk.

Connie was sitting at her desk when he arrived. “What did Renkin want?”

“I was catching hell about that reporter comment. He threatened to suspend me.”

“Don’t
dare
get thrown off this case.”

“I hear you.” He sat at the desk and pulled the notes on the case. “We better solve this quick.”

“I’ve got nothing but time, partner.”

“Good, we’re going to need the time.”

The rest of the afternoon they worked the phones, calling neighbors, co-workers, and people in Patti’s address book, but by the end of the day, they had nothing more than they did to start with. Tip packed up the files and notes and put them in his briefcase. “I’m heading out. If you feel like working late, come by the house.” He scribbled his address on the back of a card and handed it to her.

“I might do that.”

Tip walked down the steps, wondering if she really would, and he realized he wanted her to. He hadn’t liked the idea of working with Connie when she first came here, but he’d grown to like her, stupid accent and all.

He walked to the car, started it up and revved the engine. An urge ran through him to tromp on the gas and race through the streets like a drunken teenager; instead, he eased out of the parking lot and made his way to the freeway for a boring ride home. As he pulled onto the entrance ramp to I-45 North, he thought about what Tony said—about Connie being good looking.
How does
he
know her?
Suspicion raced through Tip. There’s no way she should have come in contact with Tony. Tip picked up his cell, started to call her, but stopped halfway through. There were other ways to find out.

Chapter 27

Late Night Work

I
spent another hour working the files then hopped in the car and plugged Tip’s address into the GPS before heading toward the freeway. Twenty minutes later I exited I-45 and headed down a side road, over a railroad track and through an old subdivision. At the end of what appeared to be a dead-end street, I entered a gravel driveway that had a “private property” sign tacked on the fence. Woods flanked both sides of the road and I encountered more than a few bumps along the way, but about an eighth of a mile later I pulled into a concrete parking spot next to Tip’s car. The house was well-kept. It was a ranch with a porch on the side and another porch that ran the full front of the house. Both of them full with rocking chairs and small tables. And there was a barn out back, but I didn’t see any animals. There was a garage on the side, too, but no windows.

When I got to within ten or fifteen feet, the door opened and Tip walked out, a surprised look on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“You told me to come up.”

“Guess I did,” he said, and reached for the doorknob. “You’re not afraid of dogs are you?”

“Not unless they shit on me,” I said, and we both laughed.

“Be prepared; they don’t listen well. Actually they don’t listen at all.”

Tip stepped inside, me following him. The dogs went nuts, barking and jumping up on him, then me. One of them looked like it was going to bite. “This one okay?”

He turned and pushed the dog off me. “Damnit, Flash, get off her.” He clapped his hands together loudly, three times. When that had no effect he whistled—real loud. The dogs sat and stared as if they were waiting for the next command. Tip looked dumbfounded. “I don’t know what to do now; that doesn’t usually work.” He reached for me and pulled me forward. “While they’re behaving I might as well introduce you. This pretty one with the black fur and white neck is Kassie. I named her after a girl I liked. It made me feel like she wasn’t gone for a while. Well, at least until that first night when I had to go to bed without her.”

I petted the dog’s head then moved to the next one.

Tip moved to the next dog. “This is Flash. She’s the snarler, or smiler, whatever you want to call it. That’s what she was doing when you came in. She wasn’t trying to bite you.” Tip leaned down and patted her neck. “She’s the fastest dog I ever saw and she loves chasing things. If it runs, she chases it.” He moved on to the next one. “And this sweetheart is Kelly. She’ll pretend she doesn’t miss me; in fact, she’ll plain ignore me, but she’s the smartest dog I’ve ever had.”

I petted Flash and Kelly, then followed Tip into the kitchen. “So why do you have all girl dogs?”

“I could make up a lie, but the truth is, that sometimes the dogs sleep with me, mostly when I don’t have a girl here, which is mostly every night. And I don’t want to be sleeping and accidentally rub a dog’s dick, so I get girl dogs.”

I laughed so hard I couldn’t stand it. Tip seemed to have fully embraced the telling your partner the truth pact we established.

“What do you want to drink?” he asked. “I make shitty coffee and even worse tea, but I got Coke and fruit juice. And damn good well water.”

“Guess I’ll have the damn good well water,” I said, and as I fought my way into the kitchen, I sniffed the air. “Something smells good. Where’s the grill?”

“Grill’s out front, and what you’re smelling is Tip Denton’s famous barbecue sauce. And you can’t tell me you got that in New York. I know you don’t.”

I took a peek into his pot at the sauce. “You’re right about that. I don’t ever remember seeing Tip’s barbecue.” I grabbed a chair and sat. “All kidding aside, I love barbecue.”

“I’ve got some cheap wine to go with it, too. Or beer, if you prefer.” He pointed to a cabinet by the fridge. “Glasses are over there.”

“Cheap wine will do fine,” I said, and held back a smile. Most people tried to put on airs—not Tip.

I poured the wine, setting his glass on the counter. “You need any help with dinner?”

“You can hold the door while I bring it in.”

I jumped up and went to the front, Flash following right behind me.

“You’re going to love this,” he said. “Texas original.”

Halfway through the meal, I stopped, wiping my mouth. “I have to admit, this
is
good.”

“Thanks, I think so.”

We ate in silence, Flash begging with her head on my lap. It took me a while to finish, and by the time I did, Tip had most of the dishes rinsed and dried.

“I got some charts started in the dining room,” he said. “You bring the files?”

I swallowed the last bite of food, took a sip of wine and nodded. “Got all of them, and I had Julie check with VICAP again. Nothing else in the system. Looks like we’re the only ones blessed with this asshole.”

Tip headed into a large room—maybe 16x20—with a huge table in the center and a fireplace on the wall opposite the kitchen. A picture of a woman, with a touch of gray in her hair, hung above the mantel.

“Is that your mother?”

Tip stopped and stared, and, for a brief moment, I saw something in his eyes I really liked. “That’s my mama. She was a good woman.”

I heard the “was” and didn’t explore further. “You do a lot of entertaining?”

“Me? Hell no. This used to be my living room but I never used it. I converted it to a dining room so I could put this table in here. Then I converted that into a work room. This is where I work on my cases at night.”

I looked at the table, covered in files and charts with handwritten notes on stickies. Three stands held up large poster-board charts with rows and columns drawn in magic marker. The top of the charts held each victim’s name: Mason, Gardner, and Green, and under each of the names were columns, some marked with things in common, some with question marks.

Lips removed

Beaten severely

Raped?

Know victim?

Entry into house/apartment?

Witnesses?

“So where do we
start?”

“We start with Patti since she’s the one we know best. She’s fresh and we need to get everything we can out of her crime scene.”

I winced, Patti’s body still “fresh” in my own mind. The bruises, the naked body on the bed, seemingly so helpless. She looked fit, too. How did she let herself become so vulnerable?
No way some asshole is doing that to me. Ever.
“Okay. So what do we know about her?”

Tip picked up a pad of paper and started writing. “Single. Twenty-eight. Worked at an insurance company in the Woodlands. Kept her doors and windows locked; car locked; password on computer. All of that points to a security-conscious person.” He set the pad back down by her chart. “This wasn’t some wild and crazy girl out there looking for trouble to find her.”

I shuffled through notes from the files. “iPod had a jogging list, workout list, and a dance-mix list.”

“It looks like she stayed in shape,” Tip said.

“You don’t get that kind of figure by eating ice cream.”
Or pasta.

“I didn’t notice.”

I scoffed. “Naked on the bed and you didn’t notice her figure? Come on, Tip.”

“I might come across like an asshole, but gawking at dead girls doesn’t do it for me. Besides, what I meant was I didn’t look at her in that way.”

“Guess I didn’t think about it like that.”

Tip picked his pad up. “I’m glad that’s over with. Now let’s figure out how he got in.” Tip paced while he talked. “Did he have a key?” He turned to me. “Make a note to ask her neighbors and co-workers if she was dating anyone and if anybody had a key.” As he continued walking around the dining room he thought out loud. “How did he know her? How did we find her? Who called it in?”

I flipped pages, searching the file. “It was a Fed-ex man. He was delivering a package, signature required, and on his second delivery attempt he smelled something ‘putrid,’ as he described it.”

I scanned more. “Cops came and, after determining she hadn’t been to work in a week, they opened it up.”

“So she’s been dead at least a week, if we go by when she was last at work. And none of the neighbors noticed anything? What the hell is wrong with people?” Tip stopped pacing, and sat on the edge of the table.

“And what about work,” I said. “You’d think they would have reported it sooner.”

“You got that right. If I’m an hour late, Renkin is hunting me down,” Tip said, and sat in the chair next to me. “You got the M.E.’s report?”

I handed it to him. “Ben confirms the timeline.”

Tip looked through the report. “Not much different than what he told us at the scene. Patti was alive when the guy cut her lips off. Bruises all look like they were administered while Patti was raped. No DNA found at the scene other than Patti’s, and—”

“Would you quit calling her Patti. Just say ‘she’ or something.”

“I do that on purpose. Some cases I want to forget the victim, others…like this one, I want to remember until I catch the one who did it. I want her bruises, her blood, her missing lips,
and
her name, to be in my mind when I get him.”

I was silent for a moment. “When you put it that way, I guess I understand. Let’s get to work on Patti, then.” I stood and paced, walking around Patti’s apartment in my mind, while Tip continued looking at the files. “We know she was in shape. Great body. We know from neighbors she jogged, but she had both a jogging list
and
a workout list on her iPod, so she must have worked out at a gym.”