No Safe Place (Joe Hunter Thrillers Book 11) (23 page)

Jedediah Boaz was a respected detective in his days with Tampa PD.
Bryony remembered his name being mentioned around the precinct when first she’d started work as a patrol cop in District 2, and vaguely recalled that he’d been pensioned out on medical grounds following a car crash that almost took one of his legs. In the intervening years she’d occasionally heard his name come up in conversation, but as time passed it was with more derision, and then with a note of ridicule. It saddened her to hear that former colleagues now used the man’s name as a cautionary tale for where a reliance on booze could send you, and she’d been disgusted to learn that there was even an “unofficial” sweep stake going around the office on when he’d stop sucking on a scotch bottle and place the barrel of a revolver between his teeth. Bryony had one time made her feelings known, only for her colleagues to laugh her down, and tell her she was a victim of her feminine sensibilities. Boaz was a hopeless drunk, playing at gumshoe out of the back of a car that was falling to pieces around him. These days patrol cops watched out for him behind the wheel, because they could guarantee themselves a DUI arrest. Bryony had checked: Boaz had never been arrested – let alone charged – with driving under the influence, but he had spent a few nights in the County lockup’s drunk tank.

It didn’t surprise her to find Boaz was the detective who’d pieced together the case against Royce Benson that had put him behind bars in the correctional institute at Zephyrhills; this was back when Boaz was a good detective, before the accident and his spiral into self-destruction. She’d read the case files, and from them had formed the opinion that Royce was indeed a criminal, but there was nothing to suggest he was capable of murder. Yes, he was known to be aggressive and violent, but how could she judge him on that when she saw those very same traits in Joe Hunter, a man she valued as a friend, and possibly more? Royce Benson was a fighter, but from what she’d learned he usually restricted his battles to the ring – sometimes in underground arenas granted – but there was nothing on his record that suggested he took his battles to the street itself. That was before he spent eight years behind bars. Penned up like an animal, who knew how his nature had altered? Perhaps his incarceration had allowed his anger and frustration to fester into something unrecognisable in the younger fighter. She’d checked his prison record, and found that he had been involved in a number of minor altercations, but nothing that had stained his record too indelibly, and he’d made parole two years earlier than his original ten years sentence had demanded. She knew that a prison record was never complete. On his record were only incidents the correctional staff had learned of, and taken note; there would be much more that they had missed. She decided that to get the measure of the man she was now hunting she should speak with someone who knew him for what he really was. His parole officer was unavailable, on vacation on a cruise ship down in the Caribbean, but he’d only know the man Royce pretended to be these days anyway, so she decided she should go to source.

She’d attended Boaz’s condominium in River Oaks, and having only walked up the filthy stairs to his upper floor apartment, had come away from the experience feeling grimy, sullied by the atmosphere. How did a decorated cop end up in such desperation as Boaz now lived? Easily, she concurred, and fleetingly worried about Dennis Holker and how things might have ended for him if his injuries had proved more serious. Knocking on the door had failed to garner a response, and she’d called Boaz’s telephone numbers on record, listening first to the landline phone ringing out, and then to silence when she tried his cell. She thumped determinedly on the door with the ball of her hand, but with no success. Boaz wasn’t home; so next she drove to a strip mall on West Waters Avenue, and looked up at the dingy office windows above a tool hire shop. She scanned the parking lot, and spotted an older model Honda Civic, dotted with bird droppings and a with a handful of flyers for take out food and escort girls – the required nourishment that fed many men – jammed under the windshield wipers. The car didn’t appear to have been moved in a number of days. She checked the Honda’s tag number against the one she’d jotted in her notebook earlier, and confirmed the car belonged to Boaz. She glanced up at the blind windows of his office and wondered if he was inside. She rang his cell phone again, and this time heard the faint strains of an electronic ditty over the swishing of passing traffic. But the phone went unanswered. Perhaps Boaz was out of his office and a likely contender for where he might be found was any of the nearby bars. But she couldn’t walk away without checking. Equally he could be upstairs, perhaps worse for wear from the bottle he took refuge in these days, maybe passed out in his desk chair or sleeping in any available spot. She headed for the tool hire shop, because she could see no other way up to the office.

A middle-aged Floridian man of Spanish descent greeted her. He was propped on his elbows behind a scarred counter, looking as weary as the décor in the front of the shop. He was protected behind a wire screen, with only a small open hatch through which he slouched. Behind him was a storeroom, cluttered with faded boxes and tool parts. He was round faced, carrying a scattering of old acne scars on his cheeks, and his hair receded from a sallow brow. He blinked in surprise at her, and she wondered if it was because he hadn’t expected a customer, or if it was because she wasn’t the type who generally hired from him, or if – and it were more likely – he’d immediately made her as a cop. For a second she wondered if it were only tools that were passed to customers from behind the counter, and if at any second he’d slam down the security hatch hovering over his head, and flee for a back way out. He didn’t do any such thing; he smiled at her and held up a pudgy hand as he said hi.

Bryony flashed her shield, and introduced herself. ‘I’m looking for Jedediah Boaz,’ she explained, as she glanced about seeking a door to upstairs, ‘and believe he rents the office space above you. How do I get up there?’

‘Jed’s not in,’ replied the man amiably, and there was no suggestion he was trying to deter her from finding him. His accent held no trace of his Mediterranean heritage. He looked up at the ceiling. ‘In fact, I haven’t heard him up there in a few days. Usually I can hear him clumping around on that game leg of his.’

‘Are you here all the time?’ Bryony asked.

‘One man operation, ma’am,’ he said. ‘If I don’t open up, the shop stays closed.’

‘And you haven’t heard or seen Mr Boaz in days?’

‘Four days I’d say. Coulda been Thursday last week, but I could be mistaken.’

‘Does Mr Boaz usually come in over the weekend?’

‘Spends more time here than he does at home,’ he said, ‘when he isn’t working from his car.’

‘You know his car, right?’

‘The Honda outside. It has sat out there since Thursday,’ said the man without prompting. ‘But that isn’t unusual. You do know Jed has a problem, right?’ He mimed taking a slug from a bottle. ‘There are times he goes missing for days on end. That ol’ car of his has become quite a fixture out on the lot. Was thinking of using it to my benefit, having an advertisement banner stuck on its roof to draw in passing traffic.’

Bryony didn’t answer.

‘I’d still like to go up to his office.’ She craned to see past him, again looking for a way up.

‘Sometimes, when he’s not too soused I let him go on up through here.’ He thumbed over his shoulder at some indiscernible stairwell hidden from sight in the storeroom. ‘But usually he uses the entrance around back. The stairs are a bit cramped for a drunk, but it gives access to the office when I’m closed or when I don’t want him knocking everything off my shelves.’

‘Around the back?’

‘Yup, ’round back. The service alley.’ He pointed out snaking directions she didn’t really require. ‘But you can come through if you prefer.’

She could have easily made the walk to the rear of the building, but she expected the door in the alley would be only one of two she’d have to access. If Boaz were passed out in a drunken stupor, he’d be unlikely to hear her knocking on the lowest door. ‘That’d be helpful,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

‘
No es problema
,’ he replied, almost in mockery of his heritage. ‘But you’ll have to give me a second or two…’ He grunted, and wrestled with bolts, and Bryony saw that a portion of the counter was a hinged doorway under the opening. He heaved it open and Bryony had to duck to get through. ‘Crazy, no?’ said the shopkeeper. ‘The lengths I’ve to go to these days. I used to have an open counter, made things much easier, but I got sick of kids jumping it when I was through back, and stealing the cash from the register. Hah, you can probably tell that when I installed the door, it was before I got so fat.’

Bryony smiled at his self-deprecating humour. But she had wondered: it must be a squeeze for the rotund guy to fit through the gap, and especially for a worse for wear Boaz with a bad leg. The shopkeeper went through the process in reverse, locking the hinged door behind her, then security conscious as ever, dropping the grilled flap over the opening in the screen and also bolting it shut. ‘This way,’ he finally said, and led her into the dusty confines of his storeroom. They’d to squeeze between rows of shelving, then he indicated a gap in the wall, and the first of a few stairs.

‘You don’t happen to keep a spare key to his office do you?’ she asked.

‘I keep one in the safe. What? You want to go inside when he isn’t there?’

‘I’ll see if he’s in first,’ Bryony said, ‘but it sure would be helpful if you fetched the key.’

The guy shrugged.

Bryony went up the stairs. She didn’t think it necessary to draw her sidearm, but nevertheless, her hand hovered near her shoulder rig beneath her jacket. The stairs were few, and not too wide, and the bulb the shopkeeper flicked on did little to light her way, being almost opaque with spider webs. She guessed Boaz didn’t invite too many prospective clients to his office. At the head of the stairs was a narrow landing, from where a second set of steps descended in the other direction, leading to the fire exit door in the service alley. A flimsy door was all that gave Boaz any privacy in his office, and she thought that the shopkeeper was probably right about it being vacant. When he was in his office he’d hear Boaz pass wind from downstairs, she thought.

She knocked on the door.

No answer.

She rang Boaz’s cell, and again heard the strains of music, now much louder and recognisable as a factory set ringtone.

‘Mr Boaz,’ she called. ‘Mr Boaz! Tampa PD. Can you please answer the door.’

From below her on the stairs she heard the shopkeeper coming up with the key. She held out a palm to stall him.

‘Mr Boaz? My name’s Bryony VanMeter, I’m a detective with Tampa PD and need to speak with you urgently.’ She rapped on the door again.

‘Like I said, I don’t think Jed’s in,’ offered the shopkeeper, who hadn’t proceeded up the stairs.

The trouble was Bryony believed that Jed Boaz was in his office, just not in a state to answer. Over the dusty atmosphere, and the oil and iron smells wafting up from the tool shop, she could detect another scent: one that made saliva flood the insides of her cheeks, and raise her gorge. She didn’t want to, but she put her nose to the doorframe, pressing on the door to gain a fraction of clearance between door and frame and inhaled.

‘You’d best bring up that key,’ she told the shopkeeper, after wiping at her mouth with the back of her wrist.

When he was slow to mount the stairs, Bryony went down and took the key from his outstretched hand. ‘You should stay down here, sir,’ she advised.

‘Oh no,’ said the guy, ‘is he…?’

Yes, Bryony wanted to say, Jed Boaz is dead, but first she must confirm her suspicions. She was infinitely familiar with the sickly sweet stench leaking from beyond the closed door. Boaz was dead or he’d left the carcass of an animal to rot in his place.

She trembled as she unlocked the door, then took out her sidearm. She pushed open the door, grimacing against the anticipated waft of foul air, and entered the tiny room in one sudden rush. She checked the corners, the space behind the door, then moved forward, when really she could have seen everything she needed to from the landing. Jedediah Boaz was seated in his desk chair, his head lowered on his chest. His left hand was open on the desktop, but his right hand was fisted around the handle of an extendable baton also stretched across the desk. Congealed blood, torn scalp and hanks of hair adhered to the baton. The top of Boaz’s skull showed where the baton had stripped the flesh from him with the ferocity of its impacts. On previous occasions, the murder scenes had been staged to look like something they weren’t, but this was an exception. People simply didn’t beat themselves to death with a steel baton whilst seated at their workstation.

She had come seeking answers from Boaz: primarily if he believed that Royce Benson was capable of murder. Well, even after death, Boaz told her everything she needed to know about the man she was hunting.

Cole was sitting on a tall stool at the breakfast counter in the family kitchen.
Spread out on the counter was his schoolbooks, but he had forgone his homework assignment for drawing more of his favourite superheroes. He was blissfully unaware of the reason for the gathering of adults in the sitting room, from which I’d taken a break to grab a coffee and to surreptitiously check on the boy. He looked up at me from under his shock of curls, and offered a meek smile. I winked at him, and headed for the coffee jug to pour a cup. Cole leaned over his drawing, and I wondered if it was to conceal the fact he was again tracing images from a comic book. Recalling that his mum showed him how to trace, it made me wonder if Ella had also been involved in the fraud and forgery crimes of her husband and illicit lover, Royce Benson. It didn’t matter now, I decided, and didn’t make me think worse of her – not for her criminality or her infidelity, neither of which had anything to do with me or my opinion. Standing in the kitchen on a previous occasion, I’d promised Ella I wouldn’t quit until she found justice. But now I didn’t feel I owed her my pledge as much as I did the boy.

How would he react when he learned that Andrew wasn’t his real dad, and that the man who’d murdered his mother and adopted “Uncle Parker” was actually his father? I was only glad that the task of telling Cole wasn’t down to me: I wouldn’t have known where to begin. The kid had endured enough upset to last anyone a lifetime, and I couldn’t help worry that when the truth finally came out it would send him over the edge. I remembered when I was a boy, waiting at the factory gates for my dad, who I’d walk home with and he’d give me the leftover sandwich saved for me in his bait box. Or, when his wage was particularly flush from overtime, we’d call at the chippie for a fish and chips treat, or maybe a bag of crisps and bottle of lemonade from his favourite watering hole. The time I’d waited for him and he never appeared had stuck with me throughout life, and the most vivid thing about the incident was when I was approached by his workmates, all of them wearing haunted looks, who told me my dad had collapsed and died. They had been well meaning, but in hindsight it hadn’t been their job to inform me of my dad’s passing, and it’s perhaps because I hadn’t been at home, maybe sitting on my mum’s knee, when I learned the terrible news that it had hit me so brutally. I’m sure the emotional distance that crept between me and my mum afterwards was down to the fact she wasn’t there to hold me when I learned the worst news of my young life. I was much the same age as Cole was when he heard of his mum’s murder, and I knew the distress would take a long time to subside; he didn’t need any more shocking revelations piled on him at this time, and certainly not from a relative stranger, but it was unavoidable. I pitied Andrew when the time came, but more so the boy.

Propping myself against the kitchen counter I looked over at him, while holding my coffee to my mouth. He glanced back at me.

‘Do you want to be a comic book artist when you grow up?’ I asked him.

He shrugged.

‘It’s a great talent you have,’ I said, and realised I was rehashing words I’d already shared with him before. But I didn’t know what else to say. Diane and me had never had kids. I’d never really been around children, and even as a young boy hadn’t had much to do with my younger stepbrother once John came along. Later in life I’d my dogs, and even now Hector and Paris, my German shepherds, were about the closest thing I’d ever had to children, and I was estranged from them. I struggled to find anything to say that didn’t sound false to my ear, and where Cole would note the insincerity too. ‘You should keep it up,’ I said.

‘I’ve decided when I grow up I’m going to be a police officer,’ he said.

‘Really? That’s admirable, Cole.’

‘Yeah. Then I’ll catch all the bad men.’

‘So you wouldn’t prefer to be a superhero?’ I smiled.

‘Superheroes aren’t real,’ he told me matter-of-fact.

‘They aren’t?’ I struck a pose, chin up, one fist on my hip, which probably didn’t work when I was holding up a mug of steaming coffee in the other. ‘You haven’t heard of Caffeine Man?’

Cole scowled at my attempt at humour. I’d probably tried too hard. But I gave it another go. ‘You ought to see Rink in tights: it’s not a pretty sight.’

This time he curled a lip at one corner, and I could tell his mind was working on possibilities.

‘How about doing a drawing for me? You could design costumes for Rink and me, and I’ll stick it on a wall in our office.’

He pondered the idea, and I could tell I’d piqued his interest.

‘Maybe I should let you come up with our superhero names, eh? Caffeine Man isn’t that good, is it?’ I wrinkled my nose in distaste at my suggestion.

‘Not really,’ he said.

‘What do you think of the Scarlet Hunter?’ I suggested.

His snort told me everything.

‘What’s going on in here?’

I turned and met Bryony’s gaze. She’d progressed no further than the doorway from the hall.

‘Guys’ stuff,’ I explained, with a wink for Cole. ‘No girls allowed.’

She clucked her tongue at me. ‘So how about you come and join us through here, Joe?’ She went
sotto voce
. ‘This was your idea, so some input would be helpful…’

‘Yes, Detective VanMeter,’ I said, and mock saluted. I turned to Cole. ‘Maybe when you’re a cop you won’t be as bossy as Bryony is, eh?’

Cole’s cheeks coloured because I’d shared his aspirations to be a cop with a genuine detective. He ducked back to his drawing. ‘Hey, Cole,’ I added, ‘you might need a bigger piece of paper to fit Rink’s fat head on it.’ I left him chuckling, and when I entered the sitting room I caught Rink scowling at me. ‘Oh, you heard that, huh?’

‘I heard,’ he growled.

He was sitting on an easy chair opposite the one I’d earlier vacated. Andrew Clayton was on the settee and Bryony returned after closing the door and sat down alongside him. I reclaimed my chair, and placed my cup on the coffee table that served as our war table. Bryony had supplied recent mugshots of Royce Benson, from when he was still secured at Zephyrhills, so we all would recognise him. In the photos his hair was much shorter than it had been when I’d had a brief look at him during the storm, but his face was so similar to Tommy Benson’s that I was positive I’d have spotted him in a crowd.

‘There’s no guarantee he’ll show up,’ Clayton reminded us. ‘You ask me, he’s run for the hills by now.’

‘Anyone with sense would have,’ Rink said. ‘But he’s already proven he isn’t the wisest guy around. He strikes me as having an over-inflated ego. Did he really expect to get away with setting up those murder scenes like that? If he did, it tells us he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.’

‘He’s a fraudster,’ Bryony reminded us. ‘And a forger. He gets a kick out of making things look like somebody else’s work.’

‘He wasn’t very good at it. He got caught.’ I glanced at Clayton to gauge my words on him. Maybe Royce would never have been caught the first time if not for being set up. But Clayton didn’t react. ‘His problem here was always being too elaborate. If he’d stuck to the one killing, he might have slipped under the radar. But not two times.’

‘Three times,’ Bryony said to our surprise. ‘I’ve just come from another murder scene. I think I can reasonably add Jedediah Boaz to Royce’s tally.’

‘Who? Jed Boaz?’ Clayton said, his eyes wide in recognition of the name. ‘He was the detective who put Royce away when…’

Bryony nodded at him, and briefly told us about finding the ex-cop, and now low rent gumshoe, savagely beaten to death in his office. The timing of Boaz’s violent death was far too convenient to be coincidental, and it went without much argument that the detective who’d sent him to prison had also been on Royce Benson’s hit list.

‘It suggests Royce isn’t finished yet,’ Rink said.

‘Boaz died about four days ago,’ Bryony corrected. ‘Before Quinn was murdered. Sadly he’d nobody to miss him, so it has taken us this long to discover his murder. Maybe if I knew then what I do now, I could’ve been on to Royce much sooner, and stopped him before he got to Boaz or Quinn.’ She snapped a glance at Clayton, but he purposefully chose that moment to adjust his spectacles and lower his face. Bryony shook her head, still glowering. This wasn’t a time for recrimination: who knew what fate had in store for any of us, and even if Clayton had come clean at the beginning there was no saying what route Royce would have subsequently followed. In my estimation Quinn and Boaz would still be dead, whereas Tommy Benson might not have ended up pancaked on the highway.

Receiving no comment, or apology, from Clayton, Bryony went on. ‘We’ve currently got a full-scale manhunt on for Royce Benson, but he’s managing to give us the slip. It’s my opinion that he’s lying low, but like the rest of you I don’t think he’s finished yet. I’ve managed to cobble together a press release that should convince him that with the successful arrest of the home invasion crew, he’s in the clear for the meantime. Quinn’s death has only been reported as a suicide to date, and I’m holding off on announcing Boaz’s murder – I’ve some leeway, while we wait for a relative to come forward and identify his body. His ex-wife Barbara is flying in from Seattle, but it could give us a day or two’s grace before his identity hits the headlines. As far as Royce is concerned, we’re still on the back foot and know nothing about him.’ She looked directly at Clayton now, and his features puckered in anticipation of what was coming. ‘You’re the only one who knows who he is, Andrew. That suggests to me that he’ll change tactics now, and instead of trying to destroy you through these theatrical shenanigans, he’ll go for broke.’

I raised my eyebrows at Rink. He remained deadpan.

‘I still don’t think he’ll come near me,’ Clayton said unconvincingly.

‘He’s exhibiting typical serial killer tendencies,’ said Bryony. ‘And let’s not kid ourselves, it’s what he’s becoming. Once serial killers get a taste for killing, their need for further death grows stronger, and the timescale between their killings usually narrows. Something else that’s typical in many historical cases is how the psychos begin to enjoy the cat and mouse game with law enforcement. They inject themselves into the case, more or less taunting the police to catch them. Royce has done this, sending the emails, setting up the crime scenes, trying to avert blame onto innocent people, but all the while understanding the clues will ultimately lead back to him. But if he’s true to form, then he’ll also have a burning ambition to be identified at the conclusion of the investigation, to earn his notoriety. Where’s the satisfaction in gaining revenge on those he feels betrayed him if he can’t claim the accolades for all his hard work?’

‘I think what Bryony is trying to say is he won’t stop until he kills you, Clayton.’ I took a sip of my coffee to punctuate my point, watching Clayton over the rim of my cup.

‘He’s had his opportunities to get at me before,’ Clayton argued. ‘I know for a fact he’s been in my office, and that’s where he got the samples of Parker’s writing from, for when he forged the suicide note. He also took the spare key to Parker’s place, which allowed him to sneak inside without alerting Parker. If he burglarized my office, what was to stop him waiting there for me to show up, and killing me when I wasn’t expecting it? Or that time at the gate: he could have shot me instead of just punching me.’

‘It was different then,’ I pointed out. ‘You admitted that he was using you then, blackmailing you with your involvement in the frauds. Killing you then didn’t serve a purpose.’

‘And it does now?’

‘Of course,’ Bryony said. ‘You’re the only one left he has a grudge against. Who else is he going to target?’

Clayton pointed a finger at me.

‘You killed his baby cousin,’ he said.

‘I didn’t kill Tommy,’ I said, but I was under no illusion. Tommy had been the architect of his own demise, but Royce Benson might not see things that way. ‘But I’m happy to paint a bull’s eye on my back if it helps. I’d rather he comes after me than you, Clayton. At least that way Cole won’t end up in the crosshairs.’

Mention of Cole was a dirty trick on my behalf, but if Clayton was the loving dad he’d so ignominiously claimed to be, then he’d no option than give us all the necessary assistance we required to catch Royce. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Clayton was still to fully condemn his old friend – and the fact Royce had aided him in clearing out a couple of troublesome relationships had to be taken into consideration. I’d a horrible feeling that Clayton might still feel some lingering friendship with Royce, or worse still was suffering guilt for having sent the man to prison and creating the monster he’d subsequently become. I had to play on his feelings for his son, and how vulnerable the boy was, if there was any hope of gaining his cooperation.

‘I’ve resources to hand now,’ offered Bryony. ‘I can have a patrol allocated to watch the house until we apprehend Royce. Mr Clayton, I can have you and your son placed into protective custody if you prefer?’ She paused and looked each of us in the face, before settling on me. ‘But that isn’t the plan is it, Joe?’

‘If you make things impossible for Royce, he might go to ground. If he completely jumps ship you might never catch him. If what you said about his actions coming to a head is true, we should use that to our advantage.’ I could tell she was bristling, about to remind me that this was Tampa PD’s responsibility,
her
case, and I should damn well remember that my place in it was tenuous. I forestalled her with a lifted hand, patting down her anger before it grew. ‘Like Clayton suggested, I’m probably now a target. I’m happy to be dangled as bait if it helps you catch him.’