Murder Stalks (11 page)

“
Janice and I are having a
thing.”

“
Janice?”

“
Yeah, Janice.” Rex ducked
his head, breaking eye contact.

“
Why would I care if you
and Janice were together?”

“
Rules and regs. You’re
all about following the regs. Janice is in my department. We slept
together. That means one of us is out.”

“
Dang, Rex, you had me
worried.”

“
I had you worried? That’s
all I’ve been doing since we hooked up.”

Tony bit his tongue, he wouldn’t tell Rex
what he suspected about Marissa being involved. He didn’t want his
lack of trust to ever get back to her. Tony breathed a sigh of
relief. A thing with Janice could be fixed. Murder and stealing
evidence couldn’t. An affair between Marissa and Rex...that would
be more than he could handle.

“
Sekorski, could you sit
on the information you just heard about Janice and Rex?”

“
For a while, but I don’t
want it to get out that I knew. Do you think that Rex sleeping with
Officer Owens would harm this case?”

“
No,” Tony
answered.

“
Neither do I, but don’t
expect me to keep quiet if I’m put in a position where I’m asked
point blank.”

“
Thanks, Sekorski. Do I
need to send someone down to dust for prints?”

“
No, I’ve already taken
care it. Called in a tech, she found nothing. Everything came out
clean. No prints at all. Someone wiped the surfaces. They didn’t
leave anything behind.”

“
Great, that’s not what I
wanted to hear. The brown liquid, what was it?”

“
The lab worked up a
chemical composition for it and found that it was Coke. Nothing
more,” Sekorski said.

“
Interesting, any prints
on the glass, any DNA residue?”

“
No.”

“
Rex, lets go, we’ve got a
stop to make before our meeting at four.” Tony pushed through the
doors to the hallway. His mind churned over Sekorski’s information.
Why had someone taken an evidence bag? His gut churned with the
knowledge that the killer could be inside the department. Rex’s
voice interrupted his thoughts.

“
There’s something else,”
Rex said as they left the building.

The bright sun temporarily blinded Tony. He
paused to let his eyes adjust. The heat of the day swirled around
them. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t like surprises.

“
Let’s talk in the car,”
Rex said.

“
Fine.” Tony followed Rex
to the parking lot across the sweltering grass lawn. Sweat poured
down Tony’s face and dampened his armpits. The car was close to
oven temperatures, not even the air conditioner on full blast cut
the heat.

“
When I was at Janice’s
last night I saw ten gallons of bleach.”

“
Ten?”

“
Yeah, ten.”

“
It doesn’t mean
anything,” Tony replied. He didn’t want to think that Janice, tough
broad that she was, could kill those women in cold blood. “She
doesn’t fit the profile.”

“
I know, but a lead not
followed up on is an opportunity lost.”

“
Janice, hmmm. The night
of the second murder, where was she?”

“
We were in a bar,
talking.”

Tony raised his eyebrow to that. After
hearing that Rex was having an affair with Janice, he doubted that
Rex would waste his time in a bar talking.

“
Really, after we left the
station we went to a bar. We talked until about
midnight.”

“
You know I have to follow
up on this.”

“
I know.”

“
And if you’re so worried
about rules and regs, what were you doing in a bar talking to the
woman you’re balling? Not just any woman, but someone in your
department, anyone could have seen you.”

“
We weren’t together then.
And Tony, I’m not just balling her. There’s more to it.”

“
What?” Tony didn’t hide
his surprise. In all the years he’d known Rex, he had never said
that any of his relationships actually meant something.

“
I know, Janice, of all
people. But there’s this strange connection.”

“
So why tell me about the
bleach?”

“
I’m falling in love with
her, and I don’t think I could be objective.”

“
Love? Did the great woman
conqueror say he was falling in love?”

“
Sure, tease me about it
now. Seriously, Tony, what are you going to do about the
bleach?”

“
I’m gonna ask her about
it.”

“
Oh God, she’ll know I
told you.” Rex laid his head against the window and closed his
eyes. Tony studied him for a moment. Could he trust Rex to do the
right thing? Maybe he should force him and Janice to cool it during
this investigation. Once this case was over, one of them could move
to a different position. Who was he kidding? Their entire police
department wasn’t big enough for them to work in separate areas if
they both wanted to stay on the force.

“
No, Rex, she won’t find
out you told me. Trust me on this.”

Tony watched Rex through the side window as
he maneuvered his way back to his own car. Rex and Janice together.
The thought pleased Tony but disturbed him too. Rex deserved a
great relationship, but sleeping with a co-worker was strictly
against the department’s policy. If the chief found out, one of
them would get fired, and Tony didn’t want to lose either.

Their afternoon meeting was short. Both Tony
and Rex had decided to delay telling the rest of the team about
Sekorski’s missing evidence. If a member of the force was behind
the killings, or even being blackmailed by the killer, letting them
know would be bad.

Everyone was hot and smelly after working
the streets, spending the day doing interviews and following up on
leads. Janice said she was going home to shower. Tony followed in
his car, staying far enough behind to not arouse her suspicion.

She pulled up to a small yellow house with
flowers decorating the front beds. The house had charm. Tony
wondered when Janice had time to tend to her yard. She was a
hard-core police sergeant working her way up the ladder to
detective with police work taking up most days.

He pulled past Janice’s house and parked a
block over. The run through her neighbor’s back yard didn’t produce
any cries of outrage or howling dogs. After tapping on her back
door, the sound of Janice’s shoes laying out a clipped staccato
beat on a hard floor echoed in the house. Through the thin door,
Tony heard her unsheathe her gun before her fingers push back the
curtain. He waved his index finger at her and smiled.

Janice pulled open the door and stared at
him for a few beats before letting him into her house and slipping
the gun back in its holster. Tony saw the bleach on the floor in
her open pantry.

He took a chance that she wasn’t the killer
and had nothing to do with the death of either woman. “Why so much
bleach?”

“
What?”

“
The bleach?”

“
My brother owns a fence
and wood cleaning business. Bleach kills the mold.”

“
Why is it at your
house?”

“
His apartment is small,
just an efficiency,” Janice answered. Confusion worked its way onto
her face, distorting her features. “Now it’s my turn to ask
questions.”

“
One more. Where was your
brother the night of the first and second murder?”

“
We had dinner at a bar on
the night of the first one, and during the second one, he was with
his wife. Why?”

“
Had to ask.”

“
Fair enough. Now it’s my
turn. Why do you care how much bleach I have?”

“
Sekorski said our suspect
cleaned the women with bleach,” Tony explained. He hadn’t broken
Rex’s confidence yet, but Janice was smart. He should have come up
with a better story.

“
Sick.”

“
There’s a meeting at
eight in the morning,” Tony said as he reached for the door. He
hesitated, not wanting to return to the heat so soon. The strain of
this investigation was getting to him. A swim at the pool was long
overdue.

“
So that’s all you
wanted?”

“
Yep.”

“
Are you going to search
Michael’s house for bleach next?”

“
Yeah.”

“
You think our guy is a
cop?” Janice asked.

“
I’m just looking,
covering all the bases.” Tony shrugged. Janice had always been cool
as ice, but he didn’t think she was cold enough to kill. He
shouldn’t have come, but the changes he’d seen in Rex warranted a
look.

“
Anything else you
need?”

“
Nope.”

“
Tony, I think we need to
discuss something.”

“
If it has something to do
with your personal life, I think it best if we leave it. If it’s
about the case then shoot.”

“
It’s
personal.”

“
Can it wait until this
case is over?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Then don’t ruffle any
feathers while work is so stressful.”

Tony opened the door and walked out without
another word. He wanted to tell her he approved of her relationship
with Rex, but his silence on the issue would have to do for now. As
the lead detective, it was his job to break up fraternization in
the department. Regulations called for him to report their conduct
to personnel, thus getting one of them fired. But Rex deserved a
great relationship, and Janice was a great woman.

****

The blue and red lane markers did little to
buffer the wake from the swimmer next to Ally’s lane. Annoyance
made her stroke choppy, sending splashes of water flying from her
hands and feet. She had been alone, enjoying a good swim when the
peace was broken by the newcomer’s dive.

Ally’s arms whipped through the air, pin
wheeling into the water as she plunged forward, eating up the
distance from wall to wall.

Kick, kick, kick, flip, and glide to the
surface.

Pausing, Ally took a look at the swimmer who
had interrupted her. He was large, in a muscular way, no love
handles on his trim waist. Ally ducked her head underwater and
continued stroking up the lane.

She had come for a swim so she could forget
men. She knew better than to think any man would be interested in
her. Heck, even she knew she was too weird for men. Her one pair of
women’s underwear was in her changing bag. She would throw it away
today. Ally preferred men’s briefs. Few knew she wore them, but
those who did called her a freak to her face. She was too strange
to play girly-girl now. Hell, sometimes in the dark of night or
when she was evil, she still thought of herself as a man. Her path
had been slated long ago. She wasn’t meant to be a woman.

Then Michael had blown her away when he
spoke to her, giving her a reason to hope for a normal
relationship. But normal wasn’t a term that had ever been used to
describe her.

The water muted Ally’s harsh laugh, keeping
her self-derision a secret. As she pushed her body through the
water her mind flashed back. Her memories before the fire were dim,
clouded with a desire to forget, but the days leading up to her six
months stay in the Philadelphia Boys’ Home for Displaced Children
had left an undeniable imprint.

Ally should have been a boy. She knew she
was different from the other boys in town and that’s why her
parents kept her home. Her father had beaten her harshly for
defying his edict. She would dress like a boy or else.

The rules were the rules and she knew the
reason. Before birth the nurse giving the ultrasound proclaimed
that ‘this one’s a boy’. Her father was enthralled. He had always
wanted a boy. Everything was decorated in blue. No sissy colors for
the boy.

The day Ally was born there had been a
snowstorm. No traffic to or from the hospital. The birth
certificate was never filed. Ally’s dad couldn’t bear the truth.
She was all girl. Her father wouldn’t hear of it. Ally was raised
as a son.

After suffering the humiliation of the
beating she wanted to sleep in the barn with the new colt born the
day after Ally turned eight. Her mother disagreed but her father’s
voice came back to her, still crystal clear in her memory, “It’ll
toughen the boy up. Let him sleep in the barn, Mavis.” Ally’s
mother relented, but she kept a lamp lit, just in case.

The sharp crackle of the fire had woken Ally
from a deep sleep. She watched as the snow melted around the house.
The screams from inside halted when an explosion rocked the
farm.

Neighbors raced to help, but nothing could
be done to save Ally’s mother or father. Nothing remained.
Everything that was the house and all of its contents were burned
beyond recognition.

She had heard the neighbors debating about
who should take the boy, but Ally didn’t want to live with the
neighbors. What if they found out about her secret?

Finally, it was decided the boys’ home would
take Ally. She had a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and snotty
little brats to bait her, making her life even more miserable than
it had been at home.

She never revealed her ‘problem’. Keeping it
hidden from everyone wasn’t too hard. She bathed in private, and
she timed her bathroom visits to be alone. A girl, hidden in plain
sight. No one would figure it out.