Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel (17 page)

‘I’ve got a date as well,’ I said.

‘Roger?’

‘I could tell you, but I’d have to spray you in the face with my perfume.’

She chuckled and then kissed me on the cheek. ‘Stay safe,’ she said as she left.

Stay safe. I really wanted to. I was tired of being scared all the time. There was, however, a possibility we had just apprehended the killer.

I felt a small measure of relief at the thought, and also at the knowledge that by the time I got to work I would have more information. But still I tossed and turned in my sleep, pursued by a shadow man thirsting for my blood, and I was glad when my alarm finally went off in the morning.

I was surprised to see Trent out the back making a coffee when I got to work the next morning.

‘Drug dealing not working out for you?’ I said as I put my bag on my desk.

‘Cover got blown.’

‘By me?’ I squeaked.

He let out a deep chuckle. ‘No. We made a bust last week, got one of the major players but my cover was blown. I’m filling in here till Roger’s back.’

‘Oh well congrats and commiserations,’ I said.

‘Been meaning to apologise for the shit you got into when you arrested me.’

‘Apologising for making a lousy drug dealer?’

‘No.’ He paused. ‘Well, it was unfair what happened.’

Everyone kept saying that. Everyone except Ramy. And he was the only one whose opinion mattered.

I shrugged a shoulder. ‘Just don’t do it again.’

He snapped a salute. ‘Yes Maam.’

Oh great, a smartass.

I made myself a coffee and was surprised to find him sitting on the edge of my desk when I got back. He was so tall that the desk was almost uncomfortably short for him as a perch.

‘I interviewed your man,’ he said.

‘Tattoo Face? He’s still here?’

‘We had to let him go.’ He sounded frustrated.

‘You didn’t have any reason to hold him?’

‘Judge Pierce refused to sign the search warrant until this morning.’

‘What did you get a search warrant for?’ I took a seat and peered up at him.

‘Turns out he was their pimp.’

‘Pardon?’

‘All the girls that were killed, he was their pimp.’

I felt my mouth dry and my pulse speed up. Their pimp? ‘Why would he kill his means of income?’

Trent raised both shoulders. ‘After we got the warrant we searched his apartment. We found a shirt in the wash. It had blood on it.’

‘Could be anyone’s blood,’ I said, but I was feeling light headed.

‘That’s what I thought. Put it straight in for forensics, we should have the results this afternoon.’ He stood up and headed back out the front, leaving his dirty coffee cup sitting on my desk. Typical bloody detective.

I passed the day in a state of high nerves, partly because of my date that night and partly because we potentially knew the identity of the serial killer. We were all hanging on the results of that shirt and when it came back positive for Lizette’s blood I sat down and put my head between my legs.

‘You all right?’ Daniel asked.

‘Uhuh,’ I said, wondering if there was a paper bag anywhere in the station. Was it possible it was over? Would I really be able to live my life without having to look over my shoulder?

‘He’ll be singing a different tune,’ Trent said when he came out for more coffee.

‘You’ve got him?’

‘Not yet.’

‘How do you think he knew who I was?’

‘He knew that Lizette came to you for help. Maybe he followed her.’

‘He told you that?’

‘Said she told him she came to you because she saw the killer.’

That was weird. Why would Lizette tell him she’d come to me if he really were the killer?

‘He said that she saw the killer come in while she was here and ran away.’

I stared at him. ‘She saw the killer here?’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Well he was obviously lying.’

‘Probably.’

‘Trying to deflect the heat.’

‘Possibly.’

Daniel had wandered over to my table to listen in on the conversation. ‘If only we had DNA to tie him to the crime scene,’ he said.

I smacked myself in the head. ‘But we do,’ I yelped. Jesus where was my head at? So much had happened since the fire had led to a dead end, I had forgotten about the cigar butts.

They looked at me blankly. ‘The butts,’ I said.

‘Whose butt?’ Trent said.

I’d forgotten he hadn’t been here for the majority of the investigation.

‘The cigar butts Roger and I found at the scenes.’ I thought it only fair that I get a little of the credit. They both looked at me blankly. ‘The Hula Girl cigar butts.’

Trent burst out laughing. ‘You’re pulling my leg?’

I shook my head. ‘No seriously. We found one at every scene. They all came back with the same DNA on them. We just never had anyone to check it against.’

Trent tensed, his limbs going from long and relaxed to coiled, like a feline predator ready to pounce. ‘Daniel, find the DNA results,’ he said. ‘They should be in the register.’

He was gone as soon as he’d finished speaking, leaving his empty coffee cup on my desk, again.

‘What do you think he’s doing?’ I said.

‘Getting a warrant to obtain DNA from the suspect.’

‘Oh yeah. Right. Hey how did they get the blood results back so quickly? I thought it normally took days.’

‘More like weeks,’ he said. ‘A serial killer is a priority case. The DNA testing can be done in a few hours, but there’s a huge backlog.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked. I was pretty sure we hadn’t covered that at the Academy. And I certainly hadn’t come across it during my studies since.

‘I’ve got a degree in forensic science.’

‘Wow. What are you doing here?’

‘Thought I could make more of a difference on this end.’

‘How’s that working out for you?’

He laughed and headed back to his desk. ‘When I’m a detective it’ll work out just fine.’

Damn, the man had a ten-year plan. I didn’t have a ten-day one.

They still hadn’t found Tattoo Face when I left work that afternoon. I was already running late, having to write up some paperwork on a flasher Mark and I had brought in, and only had an hour before I had to meet Roger.

‘Chanel,’ Daniel called as I headed out the door.

I thought about pretending I hadn’t heard him, but with his sincerity and those coke bottle glasses I just couldn’t lie to the guy. ‘Yes,’ I said, sticking my head back through the door.

‘I can’t find those DNA results.’

‘Huh?’

‘The cigar butts. I can’t find them in the register.’

‘They were nearly a month ago,’ I said.

‘I’ve gone right back to when we got here.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose making his eyes appear huge in comparison to the rest of his face.

‘I’m seeing Roger in an hour,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask him where they are.’

He smiled in relief and nodded his head.

‘You staying?’

‘Extra shift.’

Huh, why was I the only one not getting extra shifts? Not that I wanted to work a double shift. But the fact that I wasn’t getting them stunk of…well I wasn’t sure what it stunk of, but it stunk of something.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll ring in the information.’

As I walked home I considered driving to the Fook Yuen. My internal dialogue went as follows:

If we drive we can spend an extra fifteen minutes doing our hair.

But if we drive we’ll have to count our drinks.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing – you know.

I know what?

Well if we drink too much we may not say no if he asks to walk us home.

I’m counting on him walking us home. It’s dangerous out there. And besides, it’ll mean we get to spend more time with him.

That’s true.

And he can kiss us good night on the doorstep.

That would be romantic.

Well that’s settled then. We walk.

And we say no.

Of course.

I’ve always been a bit of a pushover.

***

There was a handbag sitting by my door when I got home with a note on it. I picked it up and read the note.

This is a much better size. Love Mum.

Although it was a gorgeous shiny coral it was smaller than my other handbags. How was I going to fit everything in? But I guess that was the point. I was going to have to cull so there’d be fewer things to get in between my hand and my gun when I needed it the most.

I rushed the shower, took my time with my hair and makeup, and then threw on a little black Ralph Lauren dress. The shoes took me longer to decide on. Sexy or sensible? I resented the choice and was looking forward to not having to consider the negative implications of my sexy shoes. But as it was I strapped on my sensible shoes with a sigh. At least they were black.

I tipped the contents of my bag onto my bed and sorted through it, reluctantly putting aside the hairspray, four lipsticks, my spare brush, some clips and bobby pins, one of the bottles of perfume and my compact mirror. Into the new bag went my wallet, gun, phone, handcuffs, perfume, lip gloss, baby wipes and at last second I threw the compact mirror back in. I was counting the perfume as a weapon – if I wasn’t close enough to spray it I could always throw it.

By the time I had done that I only had ten minutes to get to the restaurant. I ran down the stairs, feeling smug about my sensible shoes, and up the street.

I’m still not sure if it was my incredible good luck or my incredible bad luck that allowed me to hear the noise. If I hadn’t paused in the mouth of the alley next to the Fook Yeun, digging around my gun and hand cuffs for my dusty pink luscious lips lip balm, at the precise moment there was a total absence of traffic noise – which in itself is a rare and unusual thing – I wouldn’t have heard it at all. As it was, with only the noise of my own frustrated breathing I barely heard it.

A muffled scream cut off abruptly into a low gurgle. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end. I licked my still balmless lips nervously and looked around for a police officer before remembering that shit, I
was
a police officer. Sighing, I recommenced my digging, this time pulling out my Glock and taking it off safety.

I felt only marginally better with the weapon in my hand. It’s one thing to have a gun but you still have to aim straight, and that had never been my strength at the Academy. But I started off down the alley, wishing it weren’t so dark, and that my heart wasn’t beating quite so fast. I was scared. I don’t think I’d ever been that scared before. My hands were clammy and my steps trembled, but I fixed the dead faces of Leticia, Rosie and Lizette in my mind and I continued down the alley.

If I were correct in my assumption, I was willingly walking through the dark towards a ruthless and merciless killer. The Chanel of a year ago would have turned tail and run, as it was I barely managed to keep myself going. The urge to flee was overwhelming.

The heavy traffic noise had recommenced behind me and I felt cut off from the rest of the world. No-one would hear my scream and come to my rescue if this didn’t go well. I could see the end of the alley, the walls lined with rubbish dumpsters from the restaurants surrounding us. Dim light emitted from those same restaurants, illuminating some areas, but throwing much into shadow. Faint music and exotic scents that normally would have made my mouth water tumbled into the alley. I was too scared to be hungry, too scared to feel anything but the deep, dark paralysis of fear creeping into my mind and limbs.

I inched further down the alley, my arms held out in front of me, my finger on the trigger. And then I started to think. Why was I here? Why was I alone? Even though I’d made good time to the restaurant Roger would have been there already. I could go back and get him and we could call for backup. Chances were the noise I had heard was nothing; the cry of a cat in a fight.

I had started to turn when I saw her body lying in a shaft of dim light. It was strewn across a pile of garbage someone had been too lazy to put into a dumpster.

I tried to convince myself she was a homeless person asleep in the alley, but I knew different. It had been her cry I heard from the street. The last sound she ever made had reached my ears. Clenching my courage around me like a cloak I moved towards her.

Of all the dead bodies I’d seen, this one disturbed me the most. It wasn’t the vacant eyes, or the ragged cut at her throat. It wasn’t the blood pooled in her long blonde hair. It was the fact that I knew, somewhere in the dark shadows, the killer lay in wait.

The memory of Tattoo Face’s hard glittering eyes haunted me. Was he watching me? Was he even now planning my death, imagining the feel of his blade slicing through my skin?

I held my gun with my left hand while I searched for my phone with my right. If I could ring Roger, tell him where I was, he could be here in under a minute. That thought was foremost in my mind when I heard a noise, a shoe scraping over rock, and I froze.

He
was
there. Watching me. I knew what a gazelle felt like when a lion approached. I wanted to flee, I wanted to scream, but my body wouldn’t move. An involuntary whimper came out of my mouth.

What had I been thinking? I was no match for a psychopath.

Another noise – rustling – came from back down the alley.
Good God
. I’d walked past him. Right past him.