Third Eye Watch (A Serena Shaw Mystery) (15 page)

She screeched so loudly; people turned to look at them.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“No, no….you look…..”, she tried to find the right words.

“Crazy,” he offered.

“Pale. Drained”.

He nodded. His head hurt, and he needed sleep. He beckoned the waitress for more coffee, knowing the coffee couldn’t hurt; he wasn’t going to be falling asleep anytime soon.

“So. Go on. Spill”, she demanded.

“I was six when I first told my mom that my aunt, her sister, was going to have a baby soon. She patted me on my head and told me that it was nice that I had such a vivid imagination, and that she understood my desire for cousins. A few weeks later, my dad and mom grilled me to death when my uncle and aunt announced that they were expecting a child.”

“Long story short, I can see and sense things; good things, bad things, weird things. I don’t see dead bodies. I don’t see ghosts. I have visions and I receive clues, and sometimes clear messages”, he finished.

“Who all know? About your… powers?”

“My parents, my brother, my sister, and three or four of my close friends.” He paused, then added, “And now you.”

“What happened today? At the apartment” she asked him.

“I picked up the emotions in the room.  I could tell she felt lonely and missed her family. You heard her tell us about the breakup with her boyfriend; that had pushed her off the edge, well, not literally.”

“So you really are like, a psychic or something?”

“Or something,” he agreed, laughing.

An hour later, she drove him back to the office.

“My lips are sealed,” she said as he got out.

“I know.”

“But the SAC may be a good person to take in your confidence.”

She was referring to their boss’s boss, Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Nick Schultz.

“Maybe.” He was noncommittal.

THE SEARCH WARRANT

PRESENT DAY

Audrey parked outside the Marriott, waiting for the uniform to arrive with the search warrant. She remembered other instances when lives had been saved, and difficult cases had been solved cases, all because of the
messages
Sam had received.

“Let’s go,” she told Sam, as a patrol car pulled up and an officer got out. Audrey took the search warrant from him, and they walked towards the entrance, just as a parking attendant came running towards them. He withdrew with a polite nod when she flashed her credentials.

Audrey walked up to the desk, ignoring the stares from the people in the line. Sam walked around, watching the activity in the lobby; two bellboys hauling luggage carts filled with bags, a waiter passing by with a room service order, guests walking out, and several people lounging on the plush leather couches and chairs that were decoratively strewn across the lobby.

He stood next to Audrey just as a hotel manager arrived. Her nametag identified her as Cara Spielman. She was a tall, slender woman, probably in her late forties, wearing a black pantsuit, low-heeled open toed sandals, and her blond hair was swinging in a ponytail. He noticed that she wore no visible jewelry. Women loved jewelry, why didn’t Cara wear any, he wondered.

“How may I help you Special Agents?” she asked pleasantly.

“You have a guest here, Lena Bardha.” Audrey then described Lena to her and told her they have a warrant to search her room. Cara nodded and accepted the search warrant, almost apologetically, then led them to the elevators. They got off on the fifteenth floor; Lena’s room number was 5122, she told them.

“Please go back downstairs, we’ll find you when we’re done,” Audrey told Cara, who departed without argument. Sam and Audrey walked to room 5122, and stopped. A “do not disturb” sign hung on the door.

“Lena, this is Special Agent Glennon, please open the door,” Audrey said as she rapped her knuckles on the door. She knocked once more, then stepped aside to allow Sam to open the door with the keycard Cara had given them.

Audrey entered first, gun in his hand; Sam followed, also with his gun in his hand.

“Lena?” Audrey called out, but the room was empty.

The room looked lived in as if the occupants had gone out and were expected back anytime. The king sized bed looked slept in, sheets all tangled up and messy.

A Gucci roller suitcase rested on the bed. A matching one sat on the armoire in the corner. Under the table were two pairs of flip-flops and one pair of pink sneakers.

Sam looked in the closet and found hanging in there, two pairs of men’s pants and two shirts, one Hawaiian. Two dresses, one plain white and another, orange with a geometric print, also hung next to the men’s clothing. He looked at the open safe; it was empty. The drawer held some undergarments, and extra towels and napkins. There was nothing else in the room that gave them any clue about Lena’s whereabouts.

“I’ll call forensics.” Audrey pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

Sam walked around the room one more time but didn’t find anything of interest. A few minutes later, they locked the door behind them and took the elevator to the lobby.

“Call us if you see or hear from Lena,” Audrey told Cara, and then they left.

TANNER

Audrey’s phone rang. She listened for a few seconds, and then hung up.

“Tanner has something for us.” She started the car and drove them back to their office, but this time, they took the elevator to the basement, which was Tanner’s domain. He met them at the elevators.

Seth Tanner was the medical examiner; he was a short man in perfect physical condition and with a full head of hair.  With his tortoise-shelled Giorgio Armani eyeglasses, slicked-back hair, and a wide-toothed smile, he looked more like a Wall Street banker than a man who cut up dead bodies.

“Want some breakfast?” Tanner held a bag of food from which wafted the tantalizing aroma of French fries.

Tanner was never seen without a bag of food in his hands, he told everyone he had been blessed with an insane metabolism that never allowed him to gain weight, no matter what he ate.

“No thanks,” they both said in unison.

Sam’s stomach revolted; he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the smell of death and antiseptic that permanently permeated the air in the basement. The smell had never bothered his partner, but she too drew the line at eating anything Tanner offered.

Sam thought that if he had to work with the dead all day, smelling blood and puke and all the nasty gasses that a body emits after death, he’d never gain an ounce either but his would be due to
“permanent loss of appetite”
.

“
Someone got murdered,”
Tanner was singing tunelessly as they walked. It was a song by the
Clash
; Joe Strummer had written the lyrics after he’d seen a man lying in a pool of blood in a parking lot. Tanner was also well known around the building for his morbid sense of humor.

Tanner flashed his badge at a reader, and the double glass doors opened to allow them into a hallway with green walls, and a tiled floor so clean that you could eat of off it.

Tanner’s office was large and rectangular in shape, presumed to be the biggest room in the building; easily five times the size of Sam’s office. Tanner had grown up with the current Mayor of Detroit, who was currently serving a second term. Rumor had it that the Mayor had allowed him carte blanche with his setup.

The left wall was covered from side-to-side and ceiling-to-floor, with medical books and journals and a tall ladder rested against the wall, to allow Tanner to reach the books on the top shelves. The right wall had a door that led into a spacious, modern bathroom; which also housed a shower. Tanner had admitted to Audrey and Sam once that even though he showered twice a thrice a day, the smell of death never went away.

The back wall had a wet bar in the center, and each corner had a curio in which Tanner’s legendary skull collection was housed. The skulls were detailed replicas of human skulls cast from actual specimens. Tanner held forensic seminars in which he demonstrated how these skulls helped in determining age, race, gender, and cause of death during autopsies.

Tanner’s desk and a leather high-back chair sat in the center, facing the door. Sam and Audrey sat in the only two visitor chairs that were available.

He handed them each a copy of the report and then began eating while he waited for them to finish reading it.

xxxx

Fredrik’s time of death was estimated to be between 5 pm and 7 pm; four hours before his body had been discovered. He had four broken ribs and had been tortured. His face had sustained maxillofacial trauma or injuries to the bony or fleshy parts of the face, in layman’s terms. Two of his front teeth were missing, and his eye socket had multiple fractures; probably from forceful blows with a sharp object. His nose was broken, as were all the bones in both his hands. Tanner surmised a sledgehammer had been used.

The cause of death was determined to be a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. The entrance wound had been ringed with the residue of gunpowder and cordite from the bullet. It was a close range gunshot; meaning the weapon was touching his head when it was fired. There had been no exit wound. The bullet had stayed in the skull, but Tanner had found only fragments of the bullet, thus unable to identify the gun. Audrey looked at Sam, remembering that the report matched what he had told her he had seen in his vision.

When he got to the last page of the report, Sam understood why the ME stared at them with unconcealed anticipation. Fredrik had a tattoo on his neck, which his long hair had hidden. The tattoo matched the tattoos found on Sofia and the Jane Doe. Fredrik had been freshly inked; in Tanner’s expert opinion, the tattoo was only a day old.

Sam caught Audrey’s eyes and nodded. She too had finished reading the ME’s report. They thanked Tanner and walked silently towards the elevators.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Serena had spent the morning rearranging the front window display and stood admiring it when her phone buzzed.

“I m inside Starbucks in front of u r store. Can you come? Lena”.

Serena read the cryptic message and glanced towards the Starbucks; which had a decent sized outdoor seating area. She could see from her gallery that it was packed, with coffee drinkers who were mostly glued to their mobile devices.

She grabbed her purse and opting for the zero prescription eyeglasses over the sunglasses; she skipped through the light traffic and crossed the street, entering the spacious Starbucks, which accommodated the needs of a young downtown city.

She gave her eyes a minute to adjust to the interior light and then looked around the place. Caffeine-addicted folks were lined up for their daily dose of java and a few students were sprinkled across the room with their thick books, laptops, and earphones in their ears. The music played so loudly; Serena wondered how anyone could think in here, never mind study.

Unfortunately, even with her eyeglasses, the small closed space meant way too much eye contact was taking place, and her head was picking up stray thoughts so fast that she felt a date with extra-strength Tylenol was in her near future.

Serena gave the room another once-over, and then retracing her steps, she walked towards a little vestibule, which sat to the right and almost behind the front entrance. There, Lena sat, her eyes hidden behind large tortoiseshell framed sunglasses, and a beige silk scarf, covering her head, like a hijab.

Hijab is a very common sight in Metro Detroit, which is home to the largest Middle Eastern population outside the Middle East, and Serena hadn’t been looking for a woman wearing it, so it was no wonder she had missed Lena on her first pass.