Pretty Dead (8 page)

The prostitute hung back and grabbed Elise’s arm.

“I said, c’mere.”

Elise shook off the woman’s hand and approached the car, stepping into a circle of lamplight. “She ain’t feeling so hot.”

The guy stared at her. “How ’bout you? You feeling okay?”

Elise took a drag from her cigarette and rested an elbow on her crossed arm. “I feel great.”

The door opened.

She was poised to get inside when he stopped her. “No smoking.”

“You live a clean lifestyle?”

He smiled. “Very clean.”

She flicked the cigarette away and ducked into the car, closing the door behind her.

“Wanna drink?” Tyrell asked moments later. He was reclining in the seat, feet braced on the floor, one arm stretched toward Elise, the other holding a mixed drink. He smiled, and in the light of a nearby building she could see the diamond in his front tooth.

“I don’t drink when I’m working.”

He laughed. “Working’s the best time to drink.”

He drained his glass, then passed the empty over the front seat to the driver—an enormous, bald black man. Everything about him said bodyguard rather than chauffeur.

Tyrell settled back in his seat and eyed Elise up and down. Then finally he said, “I want a blow job.”

That was when Elise reached into her bag and pulled out her badge. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

He read her name and laughed. “Goddamn, if it isn’t Elise Mansfield. I thought you looked familiar. I read about you in the paper.”

Mansfield. Nobody had called her by her maiden name in years.

“We went to high school together,” he explained.

She stared at him, trying to imagine this cocky, handsome guy in her school.

Seeing that she couldn’t place him, he decided to jog her memory. “English. Mr. Monroe’s class. I went by Harold Freeman then.”

“Oh my God.” Little wormy guy who wouldn’t shut up. “You were always in trouble.”

“Things don’t change, do they?”

“Well, I never figured you for—” She stopped to measure her next words, unwilling to offend someone who might be beneficial to the investigation. “What do you consider yourself, exactly?”

“A businessman. An entrepreneur. And I never figured you for a cop.”

It was odd running into someone who saw her any other way.

“You married Sandburg,” he said. “Could you have found a whiter whitey? Like you were trying to get away from all that hoodoo stuff your daddy saddled you with. So right out of high school you marry the whitest guy around. I figured you’d have three kids, drive an SUV, and go to soccer games. That’s what I figured.” He pressed deeper into the seat, continuing to size her up. “But my, my, my. Should have voted you most likely to get hot.”

“You were the class clown.” He’d made her laugh. Elise was a serious person. Too serious, but it suddenly occurred to her that she had a thing for guys who made her laugh.

“Not that you weren’t attractive. Not sayin’ that. But you weren’t sexy. But now . . .” He pursed his lips and shook his head.

Yep, she’d overdone it. “This is a costume,” she pointed out.

He let out something close to a giggle, his hand fisted against his mouth. “I don’t care what it is. It’s not the clothes I’m findin’ interesting.”

They talked about classes and teachers and crazy things that had happened—things they both recalled differently. Finally Tyrell said, “Are you sure we can’t continue with our little rendezvous?” He glanced down at his lap, then back at her.

She chose to ignore his question, and instead introduced one of her own. “Would you be willing to come downtown to answer some questions?”

His face lost all friendliness, and the interior of the car took on a chill. “No.”

“I heard the first victim was someone you knew,” Elise said, pulling back on the threat of downtown. She wouldn’t get anything out of Tyrell if she pushed him too hard. “I heard you picked her up the night she was killed. Is that true?”

He nodded. “I did see her that night. Like early. I gotta get my beauty sleep. I’m in bed by eleven.”

“So when would you say you and she . . . hung out?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m betting the samples we took from her mouth and stomach would match your DNA.”

Her words had the expected effect. “About ten o’clock,” he said. “She gave me a blow job, I paid her, and she left.”

“Paid her with crack cocaine? Because according to the autopsy report, she had coke and meth in her system.”

“Does it matter how she was paid? I thought this was about murder, not drugs.”

“I’m trying to let you know that we have enough to lock you up.” But not enough to hold him long. She didn’t tell him that. “And I’m trying to let you know that I’m willing to forget about that if you help us.” She produced her card and handed it to him. “Here’s my number.”

He checked it out, smiled to himself, and tucked the card inside his jacket.

“This is serious, you know,” she said. Tyrell had been polite to her. She got the sense that he respected women, all things considered. “Girls are being killed in the most brutal way. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Hell no.”

“So if you hear anything or see anything, call me.” She directed her voice toward the driver. “Pull over, please.”

Their speed didn’t change.

“Pull over,” Tyrell said, repeating Elise’s command. This time the big guy responded and stopped the car. Elise opened her door and stepped out. “Call me night or day,” she said.

“You like the symphony?” Tyrell asked. “I got season tickets. Good seats. I’ll wear a suit and tie.” He nodded at some thought in his head. “I look really fine when I get slicked up. And you could do your hair and wear some kind of red strapless dress. We’d make a good-looking pair.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“For old time’s sake?”

“Not gonna happen.”

He gave her a smile. “I’m not used to being turned down.”

“I’ll bet you aren’t.”

“What the hell was that all about?” David asked once she was back in the surveillance car with him and they were driving in the direction of the police station. “From my front-row seat, that appeared awfully chummy.”

“Old school buddy. Used to go by the name of Harold Freeman, but he reinvented himself as Tyrell King. We reminisced a little. He asked me to the symphony.”

From the backseat came the sound of Jay Thomas’s scratching pen. Once again she’d forgotten about him.

“My God, this town is weird.” David drove on in silence, then seemed to have an alarming thought. “Are you going?”

CHAPTER 10

C
aroline Chesterfield adjusted her backpack and headed down the dimly lit street in the direction of home, her legs aching from standing on concrete for five hours. Such was the life of a waitress. Such was the life of an estranged child. But at least the scent of jasmine brought her a soft sense of comfort, and the dark and quiet were welcoming after the noise and overstimulation of the bar.

She considered herself a good girl, although other people had a different opinion. Her father, for instance. But she was no slouch. She’d been accepted to Harvard. Harvard! Wasn’t that enough? she asked herself as she crossed the dark street. Wasn’t that as good as actually going? An acceptance letter from freakin’ Harvard?

“He’s holding you back,” her mother had told her, talking about Caroline’s boyfriend. “You can be anybody, do anything. Why stay in Savannah? Why go to SCAD when you could go to Harvard?” In her mother’s soft Southern voice, the word “SCAD”—as the art school was known both in and outside of Savannah—somehow managed to convey just the right amount of polite disdain.

Her parents had never taken Caroline’s interest in art and music seriously, always treating it like a hobby.
Oh, isn’t that cute?
The verbal equivalent of a pat on the head. They wanted her to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever other prestigious occupation could be pulled from their butts.

Her daddy had been no more understanding than her momma. “We won’t support you in this,” he said the day Caroline confronted him with her decision to turn down the Harvard offer. They’d stood in his office in city hall. Flags in the corner, a photo of her on the wall behind his desk. “And by not support you, I don’t just mean emotionally,” her father had gone on to say. “I mean financially. If you attend Harvard, we’ll give you a nice stipend. All you have to do is concentrate on your studies. If you don’t go to Harvard, you’ll get nothing. Nothing.”

She’d recoiled in shock, his cold and unemotional tone impacting her more than the message itself. No discussion. No understanding. Handed to her like one of his mandates. But her mother’s involvement, or lack of involvement, was worse. No sympathy there either. Just silence. The good wife, backing her husband’s decision, no matter what.

So here she was, waiting tables five nights a week at the Chameleon in one of the shadier areas of Savannah, sharing a cramped apartment with two other students, going to school during the day, the boyfriend long gone. Her mother had been right about that. Once the plug was pulled on Caroline’s money, he’d vanished.

Had
she made a mistake?

She’d never admit it to her father, but she might have gone to Harvard if not for her boyfriend. And it pained and shamed her to know she’d stayed in Savannah for a guy. A loser. But none of that really mattered anymore; the biggest issue was the way her parents had treated her. Like a disposable child. The very people who should have loved her had acted like strangers, like business people she didn’t even know. And now a year had passed since she’d talked to either of them. She was beginning to wonder if she’d ever see them again.

At the next street corner, light from a bulb high on a pole radiated outward, encompassing the intersection. The scene was blurry, and with annoyance—and, yes, self-pity—Caroline realized she was crying. She stopped to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Hey.”

Startled, she turned.

A guy. In a car, the passenger window down as he craned his neck to look up at her, one arm draped over the steering wheel. “You okay?”

In the lamplight, she recognized him from the bar. He’d been polite and had left her a nice tip. Not the kind of guy you’d notice in a crowd, but someone a girl would feel comfortable around. Safe around.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You don’t look fine.”

She laughed, thinking he was probably talking about the mascara running down her cheeks.

“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?” he asked. “There’s a place on Abercorn that’s open all night.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m a good listener,” he assured her. “And I have sisters,” he added, almost as an afterthought, smiling at what having sisters implied. He understood young women. He understood this kind of breakdown.

It might be nice to talk to someone totally removed from her life. Her roommates didn’t get it. Poor rich girl, reduced to working and living just like the rest of them. No sympathy there.

But it wasn’t about the work. It was about the rejection.

She pulled in a stabilizing breath.

Footsteps drew her attention away from the guy in the car. She looked up to see a man heading down the sidewalk toward her, his gait uneven.

“And you really shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” the guy in the car said, not in a judgmental way, not in the way her parents would have done, but concerned. For her. And God, it had been so long since anybody had shown her any concern.

He leaned across the seat and swung the passenger door open.

The man on the sidewalk was getting closer, close enough for her to see his rough beard and tattered clothes. And he was coming
straight for her.

The city was buzzing about the two girls who’d been murdered. Not smart to walk home. She’d taken a cab for a few days, but cabs were expensive. And anyway, in a recent televised press conference she’d been forced to watch in the bar, her father had stated that the victims had been prostitutes and drug addicts. No need for worry.

But the weird guy was still coming toward her.

Decision made, she dove into the car, slammed the door, and locked it. “Thanks,” she said breathlessly.

Her rescuer smiled, put the car in gear, and pulled away.

CHAPTER 11

B
ody is no longer in full rigor mortis,” John Casper said after a brief, preliminary on-site evaluation. “I’d say she’s been dead close to forty-eight hours.”

David’s phone had rung at 6:30 a.m. with a report of another murder, and now here they were. Sometime during the night the nude body of the female victim had been displayed on a narrow strip of beach along the Savannah River, the body discovered just after dawn by an unfortunate group of Girl Scouts.

“Judging from the lividity, the victim was moved after death,” John added.

“Seems like the killer might have waited until she was close to full rigor to display her,” Elise said.

Early morning, a chill in the air, wind coming in off the water, sun still low in the sky, seabirds calling overhead while sandpipers scurried along the river’s edge. Beauty and horror.

John nodded. “Looks that way.”

Same MO. A young woman, nude, displayed in a public place. Body covered in a single word, just like the others.

“Cupio
.
”
Coffee mug in one hand, David pulled out his phone and did a quick search of the word. “It means ‘desire’ in Latin.”

Avery broke in. “Got an ID on the vic,” he said with an odd look on his face. He lived closer to the crime scene and had arrived thirty minutes before Elise and David. “Caroline Chesterfield.”

“The mayor’s daughter?” Elise asked in disbelief. “You sure?”

Avery turned his phone so she could see the headshot of a young woman. Blond hair, smiling at the camera. “Matches the missing person report. We still need family confirmation, but I’m betting it’s her.”

Things were a little strained between Elise and Avery, but they were both doing a good job pretending the other night had never happened. She wouldn’t mention it, and hopefully he never would either.