The 5th Horseman (18 page)

“Don’t worry,” Ken said, holding up his hands, showing her his palms. “Louie is — a great guy. Look, Lauren, everything’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about. Your service wouldn’t send you if there was.”

“I’ve made a mistake,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “No offense, guys. I’m not like this. This really isn’t me—”

“Louie,” Ken said, turning away from her, “say hello, willya?”

The big man crossed the room, stuck out his large hand. His eyes were soft and shy.

“Lauren? Nice to meet you. I’m Louie.”

She kept her hand at her side, blinking into his face, imagining how she was going to paste on a smile, say she had to go to the bathroom, casually pick up her purse. Take out the thousand dollars. Put it on the TV . . . and blow the hell out of here.

“Louie, why don’t you show Lauren — you know.”

It seemed to Lauren that time had slowed. She felt for the chair, steadied herself as Louie opened the closet door. The closet door?

“He has a heart of gold,” Ken was saying quietly, so that Louie couldn’t hear. “He hasn’t been with a woman since his girlfriend dumped him last year. Such a decent person,” said Ken. “I’d trust him with my life.”

Louie rolled a suitcase into the room, parked it next to the sofa. “You’re a seven, right?” Ken smiled at her. “I asked your service to send a seven.”

Lauren nodded dumbly. “It’s his birthday,” Ken was saying. “I didn’t want him to be all alone.”

She was getting an idea about Louie. He was one of those teddy-bear types, maybe. A nice guy, but no game with girls. She watched him pull at the zipper on the suitcase, take out a long dress, and hold it out for her to see.

“This is for you, Lauren. Honest. It’s yours to keep. No strings.”

Lauren stared at the navy-blue reembroidered lace gown with a jewel neckline, the sheath silhouette that flared out below the knees to the floor. It was a Monique Lhuillier. Cost a ton. She could keep it?

“I have connections in the wholesale business,” Louie explained.

Could she do this? Could she?

She didn’t feel so tense anymore. Two nice guys . . . let them do it to her . . . pay off her debts . . . beautiful dress . . . Suddenly she felt euphoric.

Ken was holding up a necklace, a curving chain with diamond chips, light bouncing off the facets.

“This is really your lucky night,” Ken was saying.

Lauren tried to step toward him, show him that it was okay, but her vision blurred and the room tilted. Her legs folded, and she dropped to the floor. The champagne climbed back into her throat.

I can’t open my eyes! What’s wrong with me?

She felt the two men jostle her onto the bed . . . their hands pulling at her clothes . . . thumbs hooked into her panties . . . her legs over someone’s shoulders . . . rough bumping and . . . what was happening?

Air burst from her lungs. She felt a tremendous weight on her chest. She couldn’t breathe!

“Please,” she cried out. “Stop . . . please . . .”

Lauren heard someone laugh.

Something tightened around her neck. She tried to fight, but she couldn’t move!

She strained for air, sucked plastic into her nose and mouth, stared up at Ken’s contorted face through the film over her face, his kind brown eyes horrifically transformed.

Why?

Why are you doing this to me? I should never have come here. Oh, God, you’re killing me! It’s not too late, please . . . stop. . . . God, give me another chance, and I’ll never do anything like this again, no, nooo, I don’t want to die. Please. Not like this.

JAKE HADLEY GLANCED at his wristwatch, something he was doing about every sixty seconds now. Quarter to 9:00. He’d been standing with his boys in line outside the convention center since half past 7:00 that Saturday morning, catching their excitement as they squeezed his fingers, chased around him making car engine noises, asking, “When, Daddy, when? Is it time?”

Today was the day his two boys had been waiting for all year — the opening of the International Car Show.

And finally, the line was moving.

“Dad! Oh boy oh boy oh boy. They’re open.”

Jake smiled as he pulled the tickets out of his shirt pocket and handed them to the young man at the turnstile.

“Have fun in there,” the ticket-taker said. He was wearing a red-and-black T-shirt, the car show logo across his chest in a speedy-looking type font with racing stripes, Jake thinking he’d get a couple of those for the boys.

“Thank you. Plan to,” Hadley replied, holding his kids’ hands as they jumped up and down, about to pull his arms out of their sockets.

Air-conditioning, soupy music, and the indescribably delicious smell of car wax and new leather enveloped them as they entered the glittering automobile extravaganza.

Where to look first?

Concept cars rotated on platforms. Pretty girls in tight-fitting skirt suits and prim shirts, and showing a little too much leg, the ultimate blend of sex and money, performed their sales pitches.

Lights and music coming from everywhere.

Directly ahead, very attractive women with badges sat behind long tables, handed out glossy car brochures.

“If we get separated for any reason, this is Hadley Family Central,” Jake said, stooping to the height of his six-year-olds. “Look around. Get a fix on this place, because this is where I’ll come to find you.”

“Okay, Dad,” Stevie said. “Byeeee!” Then he broke free, running ahead toward the European cars in the main hall.

“He wants to see the Ferraris,” Michael explained to his dad, “and the Monstarotties, too.”

Jake laughed as he and Michael followed Stevie, the vast space filling up quickly as the crowd surged in like the tide.

Jake lost sight of Stevie for a moment; then he saw his boy on a carpeted platform as the salesmen pulled the cover from the sleek, silver 2007 Ferrari coupe.

Jake called out over the noise of the crowd. “Steven. Get down. You’re not allowed to stand up there, son.”

When Stevie turned, Jake saw a stricken look on his boy’s face. A pang of fear seized Jake even though his son was in plain sight.

He gripped Michael’s small hand.

“Come on, now, Stevie, get down—”

“The lady in the car, Dad. Something’s wrong with the lady in the car.”

Jake Hadley started to tell his son that the model in the front seat wasn’t real, but as he came closer, peered inside, his heartbeat quickened — then it began to race.

The girl’s open eyes were dulled, her pretty face tipped at an unnatural angle. He saw what appeared to be a wide purple shadow around her neck. She was wearing some kind of evening gown.

What the hell was this?

“Steven!” he yelled at his son, grasping the boy’s arm. “I said, come down, now.”

By now, others had seen the girl, too, her limbs frozen in a waxy parody of a mannequin — stone-dead in the two-hundred-thousand-dollar car.

The salesman in charge of the concession waved the crowd away. His face was pale, his eyes wild, and he was shouting, “Stand back, please. Stand back. Get the hell away from here!”

People swarmed toward the Ferrari, then away from it, a riptide eddying around Jake and his boys.

Sharp screams pierced the peppy pop music, and Jake’s sons broke into tears. They pressed their faces into their father’s body, fiercely hugging his waist and legs.

His heart galloping, Jake hoisted the twins onto his hips and walked quickly toward the exit.

He spoke sternly to the wide-eyed ticket-taker at the door.

“Someone’s dead in there. A woman. You’d better call the police right now.”

THE CAR-SHOW VISITORS streamed out of the convention center looking like shell-shocked commuters who’d driven too close to the scene of a nasty, very bloody accident.

Jacobi was waiting for me just inside the big glass doors at the Howard Street entrance.

“Welcome to Groundhog Day,” Jacobi said.

“Tell me about it.”

Jacobi brought me up to date as we cut through the crowd, working our way toward the rear of the hall.

“White female, eighteen to twenty, blond, a hundred pounds soaking wet, ligature mark around the neck, parked inside a Ferrari.”

“My God. These freaks. What audacity, craziness. What nerve to do this in public. Look at all these kids at the auto show!”

“They’re messing with us, Boxer,” Jacobi said. “Thumbing their noses and laughing their asses off. That’s my read.”

He pointed out a couple of cops and CSU techs standing between the fast-food concessions and the European sports cars. A measly cordon of yellow crime scene tape circled a hinged partition of fiberboard.

As if sixty square feet could contain a murder scene.

I stepped behind the partition and saw a vignette that shocked me to the bone. The victim had been dressed, coiffed, and displayed as a still life: Blond Woman in Slick Silver Car. It was gallows humor, a sly inside joke, another pretty young girl, killed for someone’s sick pleasure.

“Get the manager,” I said to Jacobi. “I’m shutting this place down.”

I got the chief on my cell, asked him to assign every available cop to the convention center and to give a heads-up to the mayor. Soon there’d be satellite vans on Howard Street and news choppers overhead, no doubt about it.

Charlie Clapper stopped shooting the scene long enough to hand me a pair of latex gloves.

“We’re doing the best we can, Lindsay, but I’m going to take this car back to the lab. Give it our special detailing.”

“Any ID on the victim?”

“No wallet, no handbag, no nothing.”

I reached through the driver’s-side window, touched the girl’s cheek with the back of my wrist. She was still warm. The ambient temperature was about 68 degrees and dry.

I had an idea. If we moved fast, it might work.

“Charlie? Let’s superglue her right here.”

CSU was setting up a fuming tent, when a portly man, red-faced and furious, pushed through the mob and got into my face.

His name tag identified him as “Patrick Leroy, Show Manager,” and he was yelling, “You can’t shut us down. Are you insane?”

Spit flew as he shouted questions without answers: did I know how much revenue was going to go down the crapper? How I was turning great publicity into dog crap? How much shit was going to rain down on me personally because of it?

It was one long, scatological rant, and I didn’t like any part of it.

“Someone’s been murdered, Mr. Leroy, understand? I have to preserve what’s left of the crime scene and catch a killer. So while you act like a jackass, people are stampeding up and down the stairwells and spreading DNA around the bathrooms.

“The quicker your security staff helps us empty this place out and submits to interviews, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair.”

“And when do you think that will be?” he asked, breathing hard.

“We’ll be done when we’re done.”

“Give me a break! I have to tell people something.”

I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Figure at least twelve hours,” I said.

“An entire day? You’re canceling out Saturday? Millions of dollars shit-canned. Millions,” he said, stabbing the buttons on his cell phone. “You have no idea.”

“There’s a dead woman in that Ferrari,” I said.

Then I turned my back on him as Jacobi appeared at my side, saying that he’d collected the security tapes, including those that had been trained on the loading docks.

We paused to watch cops usher paying customers through the promotional glitz and out the door. Nobody was very happy, to put it mildly.

“If we don’t nail these psychos,” Jacobi said, “I’m taking early retirement. Without a party. And you, Boxer, you’re going to be busted down to meter maid.”

“You know what I’m wondering?” I said to my old partner. “How the hell did they get that girl in here?”

I KEPT RUBBING MY ARMS against the chill inside the morgue as I took in the pitiful sight of our latest Jane Doe lying nude on a steel table.

She looked as innocent and as vulnerable as a sleeping child.

Claire greeted me from her stepladder, where she was shooting the victim from above, while at ground level, nonessential personnel ogled the naked, pretty woman.

“Hey,” Claire barked. “Everyone, get out. Out! Not you, Lindsay. Bunny! Bag and tag the shoes. Give everything to Loomis and don’t forget the necklace. It’s right there on the table.”

Claire stepped heavily down from the ladder, adjusted the light a few degrees, revealing four faint smudges fanned out on the girl’s left cheek.

Fingerprints.

I could hardly believe it. Thank God, we finally had something.

“Those are a child’s prints,” Claire said, crushing my half second of elation. “Left by the six-year-old boy who found her.”

“Nuts,” I said. “Hey. What’s that?”

I moved in closer to better see the glint of something in the girl’s mouth. Was it a clue? Maybe a message?

“Too sad for words, that’s what it is,” Claire told me. “Show Girl here is wearing braces.”

The air went out of me.

She was so young. Too young to die, especially like this.