Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (11 page)

“Why don’t you speculate out loud,” Krupp growled.

I looked at her for a minute, then shrugged.  What the hell, why not.

“It sounds like the cartridge was handloaded to a softer level of power and sound. A standard hardcast semi-wadcutter .357 will blow right through a man, not lodge in the brain. I’m thinking you’re dealing with a murder weapon cut down from a single-shot rifle or even a pistol-caliber lever-action carbine.”

“Sounds homemade.  How would they suppress it?” Krupp didn’t sound too surprised, but then, they would likely know the weapon from the marks on the recovered bullet.

“Well, I’ve heard of someone patenting a device that screws on the end of a threaded barrel that lets you mount a car oil filter. Oil filters are almost ready-made expansion chambers, complete with paper baffles.”

“Which would leave paper particles on skin,” Briton finished for me.  I nodded.

“An oil filter?” Krupp asked, sounding intrigued.

“Yeah, the killer probably welded a threaded receiver to the muzzle of his or her cut-down rifle.”

“So how would he get the victim to hold still long enough to stuff this foot-long gun under his chin and shoot him precisely in the brain?” Dison wondered.

Good question.  I checked the ground right up against the wall for shoe marks, but it was clean.  Standing up, I caught a whiff of something from the bricks of the wall itself.  Perfume—unknown brand—not anything I’d smelled before.  It was about head height for an average-sized female.

“Tell me about the victim?” I asked.

“You know you come at this more like a cop than a psychic?” Connor questioned.

“I told you—I’m not really much of a psychic,” I said.

“But you used to be a cop,” Mazar said, suddenly.

I ignored her comment but instead sat back and looked at the rest of team, waiting for someone to spill the details.  Lyle finally broke down.

“Victim is one Cody Charles, born and raised just outside of Pikesville, Kentucky. Age twenty-seven. Court records for his early teens show a pattern of petty juvenile misdemeanors.   Brought up on assault charges at eighteen, plea bargained down to probation.  Further assault charges for beating up five guys in a bar at age twenty-four, but the charges were dropped. None of the vics would I.D. him.  Suspect in two rape cases but again, no identification by the victims.  All in all, a real charmer,” Lyle said.

So based on that, it looked like he was Turned by age twenty-four, which is why he could beat the crap out of five guys.  Abusive and criminal.  Just the kind of guy you want to have the lethal abilities of a werewolf.

“What about the other victims?” I asked.

Briton answered,  “Similar rap sheets.  Assault, rape, lack of witnesses willing to testify.”

“So  Cody boy gets up to hit the men’s room, spots something out the window that intrigues him enough to leave the building but not worrisome or he’d call his crew.  He backs the killer up against a brick wall, then obligingly holds still while she shoots him.”

“She?” Krupp asked sharply.

“Yeah, I’m thinking our killer is a female.  Cody the ladykiller spots a hottie out the window and heads out to engage.  Using his killer charm, he backs her up against the wall.  She’s obviously no threat to a tough guy, so he doesn’t see the weapon she’s holding till it’s too late.  Maybe it’s in a bag or something.”

“The unsub is a female?  Picking off all the male members of this pack of charmers one by one?” Dison said, more testing the question out loud than looking for anyone to answer. He was trying to sound surprised, but he didn’t smell surprised.  I was telling them stuff they already knew.

“Maybe this group wronged the killer—raped her or a family member, and she wants revenge,” Stacia said.  The team looked like they had forgotten about her, which kind of floored me.  Forget Stacia?  No way.

“What?  It’s what I’d do.  I’d hunt the fuckers down and castrate them, then kill them if they hurt my mom or me,” she said fiercely.

The men looked a bit wide-eyed at her ferocity, but I noticed Briton nodding her head slightly in agreement. 

“Kyle, Briton—go back through all the victims' histories.  Look for any unsolved crimes that they may have in common.  Include Simon Masten and the other one that’s still alive—what’s his name?  Bo?”

“Yes ma’am, Bo Morrison.  We’re on it,” Lyle said, glancing at the blonde Briton and getting a nod back.  They headed back to their vehicle, pulling phones and laptops as they went.

“The only problem I have with your theory, Gordon, is the first two vics were killed deep in the woods with gunshots to the head from an elevated position.  The bodies were then dragged through rough terrain for several hundred yards and finally strung up in trees.  It would take a very strong female to accomplish that.”

“Maybe she used a block and tackle or a come along?” I suggested.

“Or maybe she has a helper,” Stacia suggested.  Krupp and Dison both turned to look at her.

“Well you can only see this part of the alley if you’re on the second floor.  How would she know when to flaunt herself unless someone else was watching the group as they ate dinner?”

I walked over to the apartment building wall, where someone would be most visible to the restaurant.  The hard pavement had patches of dirt and dust.  Thin tire tracks were visible in one spot.

“Someone park a bike here?” I asked.

“Those tracks are consistent with an older model Schwinn bicycle,” Connor said.  “and before you ask, yes we questioned the residents of the building. No one rides a Schwinn.”

“Where, in the restaurant, was Masten’s group sitting?” I asked.

“Front right corner,” Connor answered.

I walked across the street, past our car.  Three houses were directly across from the restaurant, all apparently converted to apartments.  Looking back at the restaurant it was obvious that only the third one, farthest from our car, had the right angle to see into the restaurant.  The house had a driveway that ran down the left side of the property.  The driveway followed a white, six-foot fence for the back yard of the next house down which was a corner property.  It was a modern vinyl-type fence that blocked all view into the corner house’s yard.  Pulling myself up and peering over the fence showed a cluttered backyard filled with a jumble of children’s toys.  A raised metal fire pit sat ten feet from the corner, surrounded by a mix of folding camp chairs.  A small stack of firewood was stacked against the fence just under my viewpoint.

“A lookout could easily stand on that wood pile and watch over the fence, then let the female know when one of the group headed to the john.  Did they come here often?” I asked.

“Yeah, Masten said it was his favorite restaurant up until the shooting,” Dison said.

“The killers spent a lot of time studying Masten and his group.  This was pretty carefully set up.”

“Congratulations Gordon, you’ve recreated the same scenario we did,” Krupp said.

“Yeah, but in like ten minutes.  And we didn’t have the murder weapon sketched out quite so clearly,” Connor said.  Krupp glared at him.

“I mean we knew it was a single-shot Rossi in .357 magnum, but we hadn’t sussed out the possibility of the oil filter suppressor,” he clarified defensively.

“How did you know where the murder occurred, Gordon?” Mazar asked.

“Granger told me it was in an alley outside the restaurant.  This is definitely more of an alley than the florist side,” I answered with a shrug.

“So no psychic visions of the killers’ faces?” Krupp asked sarcastically.

“Not a blip,” I agreed.

“Some psychic!” Dison said. I used to be a cop too and recognized that he was baiting me.  I ignored him.

“Boss, we struck out on the common rapes theme around Pikeville,” Briton said as she and Lyle approached.   Krupp started to turn a smirk in our direction, but the blonde agent held up one hand.  “But we got a possible hit on a crime in the center of the state, quite a bit west of Pikeville.”

Lyle said, “A husband and wife were murdered seven months ago near Irvine, which is outside Richmond, and right up against the Natural Bridge state park.”

Krupp raised her eyebrows in question.  Briton answered her. “The Masten group does a lot of camping in that park.”

“Any surviving family?” Dison asked.

“Sixteen-year-old daughter and an eighteen-year-old son.  Family owned a horse farm.”

“What’s the daughter’s name?” I asked.

“Elizabeth J. Sutton,” Briton answered. “The son is Alex M. Sutton.”

“What does the J stand for?” I asked.

Both agents paused while they searched their databases.

“Jetta,” Lyle answered first.  Stacia and I stared at each other in shock.

“Care to let us in on the secret?” Krupp demanded.

“The heavily perfumed waitress at the restaurant is Jetta.  She told me she was from Kentucky and that her parents were murdered.”

“She told you all that?  Not much for keeping secrets for a budding serial murderer,” Dison noted.

Stacia snorted. “You’d be surprised what girls will say if they have the attention of my friend here,” she said with a nod in my direction.

They all stared at me for a second, then Briton nodded.  “Yeah, no shit!” Her face went pink as soon as she said it and she immediately looked down at her computer .  Krupp gave her a speculative glance, then turned into boss agent.

“Everyone, back to the restaurant!  Now!”

Chapter 12

“That scenario make sense?” I asked Stacia as we followed the agents back to the hotel.  They had raced off while we followed at a more sedate and less law-breaking pace.

“Totally.  Male weres are horndogs, always looking to score. Masten’s group is a bunch of twisted rapists to begin with.  They wouldn’t be able to say no to a chance to dominate a young girl like your waitress.”

“That’s why she wore so much perfume, to cover her scent,” I noted.  “A family of horse people would likely know a thing or two about hunting predators.  Just different bait.”

“Yeah, she won’t be there when we get back.  She’s too smart.”

“Why did she tell me about her parents, then?” I asked.

Stacia sighed.  “Even smart girls get stupid around attractive men.”

“That simple?” I asked.

“Who knows?  But it could easily be that simple.  Remember, she’s young and parentless.  Almost everybody falls for the Halo Effect at one time or another.”

“The what?”

“Halo Effect.  We covered it in Psych 101 at Columbia.  We automatically give more credibility to attractive people.  Girls use it to great advantage, but we also fall victim to it.  No matter how smart she is, she could easily be swayed by a really good looking person she thinks is human who commands the respect of both werewolves and FBI agents.”

“Respect?  Agent Krupp?  You’re joking, right?”

“No.  What self-respecting Special Agent gives any credence to a psychic?  And Mazar?  She wasn’t with the team last night, but she shows up today and nobody on the team interacts with her.  She’s a plant.  Why else would Krupp ask you to look at the scene?  When she threatened to shoot 'Sos, she was already on edge.  Mazar is using her to test you.”

“Look at you—single-handedly destroying the blonde stereotype all over town!”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone ‘cause the whole stupid blonde thing is really useful,” she said with a grin.

We arrived at the hotel about then and spotted Krupp standing in the parking lot, giving orders to her team.  Mazar stood back, working on her iPad and generally separate from the team.  Krupp was looking decidedly unhappy.

“She gone?” I asked through the open window of the Volvo.  Mazar was suddenly attentive, watching as Krupp responded.

“Yeah, her supervisor said she seemed unhappy after we left, worried about something.  She left her uniform and took off almost immediately.  Her job application lists a bogus address.  She’s only worked here about three weeks.”

“Well, glad we could help.  Good luck with the case, Agent Krupp,” I said.

“Where the hell are you off to, Gordon?” Krupp asked, suspicious.

“Lunch. I’m starving.  Then I have some heavy feng shui to throw around at the Grangers’ place.  See ya,” I said, giving an extra wave to Mazar, who looked curious as hell.

I pulled back out onto the road.

“What are you hungry for?” I asked Stacia.

“Seafood,” she said instantly.  I glanced over at her; she was holding her smartphone up. A local seafood restaurant was on the screen, the picture showing a huge saltwater aquarium in the restaurant dining room.

“Hmm, good choice.”

The giant aquarium formed part of the wall separating the restaurant entryway from the dining room.  It was easily eight feet long and three feet wide.  A big block of twisted black coral took up the center, providing dozens of nooks and crannies for the multi-colored fish.  Inspecting it closely revealed that the dark coral rose almost to the top of the tank and had a couple of openings that looked big enough to house a moray eel… or a paperback-sized book.