Determinant Page 2

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. Come on.”

  “These should be mandatory equipment. The last time I came here I smelled death for three days. Just a whiff now and then like there were little dead person particles stuck inside my nose clinging to my nose hairs. I have an extra pair if you’d like.” Hank dug in his pocket and pulled two more ear plugs out.

  “I’ll be fine, Hank.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Ed stood at table toward the back. A white sheet covered the body in front of him. “Down here, guys.”

  We walked over. As soon as he saw the plugs lodged into Hank’s nose, he rolled his eyes. “Are those police issue?”

  “You guys should hand these out at the door.” Hank’s nasally voice sounded almost as comical as he looked.

  Ed shook his head and pulled the sheet back. The woman wore a small black dress. Her long hair hung to the sides of a bloated face. Her eyes were open and milky white.

  “No belongings or identification found with the body?” I asked.

  “What you see is what we got.” He brushed her black hair away from her neck. “You can see the ligature marks here.” He pointed to the purple bruising around her neck. It was an inch and a half wide spanning her entire throat. “I’d say it came from a belt.”

  “Age?” I asked.

  “I’d put the age in the early twenties. We have a number of tattoos to go off of to try to get an identification.”

  I leaned back from the body to get a few inches away from the smell. “Any other injuries?”

  “I didn’t find anything else on the first pass. There were a couple minor contusions and marks across the body, but all postmortem. Fish poking around would be my guess.”

  “How long would you say she was in the water?” Hank asked.

  “Rough estimate of ten days or so—around there. The skin around her hands and nails has begun to separate. That doesn’t start to happen until after a week. The water temperature and a host of other variables come into play as well, but I’d say ten days.”

  “Can you still get prints?” I asked.

  Ed scrunched his face. “Not traditionally. I can try a few things but I wouldn’t hold my breath. She has some pretty distinctive tattoos though. I took photos of them and included them in the file. Her height, estimated weight, hair color and all that are in there as well. You need to see anything else?”

  I took another look at the bloated female corpse. “We’re good here.”

  Ed pulled the covering back over the body. “I should have the autopsy done tonight and be able to get you the results by tomorrow morning.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, I’ll grab that file for you from my office and meet you back up front.”

  Chapter 3

  I dropped off a copy of the file to our guys in the Missing Persons Department. If she was local and reported there was a good chance they could get me an I.D.

  I sat and picked up the phone at my desk. The clocked showed a quarter to six. Our reservations were at six thirty and I was going to be late. The Japanese steakhouse she wanted to go to was attached to one of the bigger shopping malls in the area. The twenty minute drive from work, would be double that during rush hour traffic. The couple text messages I received from her throughout the day told me she was at the mall shopping and wanted to catch a movie after dinner. I dialed Callie, she picked up in two rings.

  “Hey, Babe. Are you done?”

  “Almost, but it looks like I’m running behind. I can leave here in about fifteen minutes or so, should be able to be out there before seven.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m just finishing up shopping now. I’ll walk over to the restaurant in a few minutes and see if we can bump our reservation back. We can always just go somewhere else if we can’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll try to get there as soon as I can.”

  “It’s not a big deal. Just call me when you’re close.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “OK, see you soon.”

  I hung the phone back on the receiver. Unlike my ex-wife, there was no guilt trip for being late. No guilt trip for my job ruining her plans. Either Callie understood or our relationship was still new enough that she wouldn’t let me see she was annoyed. I guess time would tell.

  I locked up my office on the way out and popped in by Captain Bostok to tell him I was taking off. His door was open, so I headed in.

  He pointed to the chair across from him at his desk. “Kane, grab a seat. What did you get out by Ed?”

  I sat. “Woman was in her early twenties. Choked with a belt was Ed’s best guess until he does the autopsy.”

  “Did he give you an estimate for how long she was in the water?”

  I nodded. “He thinks over a week.”

  “I.D.?”

  “Nothing. She had some tattoos. I made a copy of the file Ed gave me and dropped it off upstairs at Missing Persons. It looked like everyone had already left for the day so I left it in Schmidt’s inbox on his desk.”

  “If someone reported her, he’ll have something for you come morning.” The captain dug through the mini fridge next to his desk and pulled a can of V8 from inside. “You want a V8?”

  “No, I’m good thanks. Not a tomato fan.”

  “I have to lay off the caffeine and junk food. The doctor said I’m sixty pounds over my ideal weight and have a high risk of a heart attack. He said I need to start taking better care of myself if I wanted to see seventy. The wife got worried. She has me drinking this stuff now. It’s supposed to be good for you and it tastes alright. Sure you don’t want one? This isn’t the tomato flavored stuff. Says it’s organic splash flavor.”

  “Well, when you make it sound so good. Yeah, fine. Give me one.”

  He pulled one from the refrigerator and slid it across his desk at me. I cracked the top of the can and took a sip. It still tasted like watered down tomato soup. I glanced at my watch. My fifteen minutes I told Callie before I’d leave was ticking away. “Anything else, Cap? Otherwise I’m going to take off.”

  “Someplace to be?”

  “Dinner reservations.”

  He smiled. “Oh yeah, the big six month anniversary, huh? Now, do you give gold or silver for that?”

  I leaned back in the chair. “Geez, you too?”

  He laughed. “Hank came in here before he left. He told me he’d buy breakfast tomorrow if I said something.”

  I stood and made for the door. “Sounds like a captain taking a bribe to me.”

  “Yeah, kind of. Have a good night, Kane.”

  “Later, Cap.”

  The drive to meet Callie for dinner was, as expected, traffic ridden. I called her on the drive letting her know I’d be even later than expected. I pulled into the mall’s parking lot at a quarter after seven. Callie sat on the bench outside. She stood as I walked up.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late.”

  She smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I told you not to worry about it.” She gave me a kiss. Callie’s bags from shopping bounced off my back.

  “How was shopping?”

  “Fine. I got a couple new pairs of shoes.”

  “Shoes? You don’t have enough?”

  She smiled. “You can never have enough shoes.”

  Callie recently relinquished some closet space to me for when I stayed over. Albeit, very little. The floor and shelves of her walk in closet in the master bedroom were completely filled with shoes. It looked like a shoe store. Each line was color coordinated and separated by style. I got three inches of hanging space for a suit and street clothes, plus one twelve inch by eight inch spot of floor space for a single pair of work shoes.

  I smiled back. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I think you may have a problem.”

  She laughed. “Whatever. It’s a girl thing.”

  “I guess.” I looked through the glass doors of the restaurant. “Any chance we can still get in here? It looks busy.”

  “Ye
ah, we’re fine. Our reservation isn’t until seven forty-five. So you’re early. Come on, let’s go grab a drink from the bar.”

  We walked into the steakhouse and stopped at the hostess desk.

  “We have a reservation at seven forty-five under Kane,” Callie said.

  The woman scanned the sheet laid out in front of her. “Here we go. It looks like we have a few minutes yet. I’m going to give you this pager here and it will light up and vibrate when we’re ready for you.”

  Callie smiled. “Great, thanks.”

  We walked over and found a spot at the bar as two people were leaving.

  Callie sat the pager up on the bar and poked at my knee. “Have you ever been here before?”

  “Nope. First time.” I took in the surroundings. Above the bar were fiber optic lights dangling from the ceiling, rotating from one color to the next. A waterfall wall separated the bar and table seating from the hibachi grills and group dining in the back. I liked the atmosphere.

  “Do you want to do the hibachi or just get a table up front?”

  I thought about it for a second. I wasn’t a fan of sitting with strangers. From all the recent news coverage, I’d been getting recognized in public. I always seemed to find someone who wanted to talk about my job. “You pick.”

  She smiled. “Okay, I will. Let’s get a drink.”

  I ordered a beer, Callie got some form of non-alcoholic daiquiri and we talked for a few minutes before our pager lit and did a dance on the bar. We took it back up to the hostess station.

  “Would you guys like a table or did you want to do the hibachi?” she asked.

  “Table please.” Callie looked to me. “I just don’t want to sit with a bunch of strangers if that’s alright?”

  I smiled. “Yeah that’s fine.”

  “Right this way.”

  We followed the hostess over to our booth and had a seat.

  She placed a menu before each of us. “Your waiter will be with you in just a moment.” She smiled and walked back toward the front.

  I picked my menu and thumbed over to the entree section to have a look.

  Callie looked at her menu for a few seconds and then sat it down. “Already know what I’m going to get.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Mango calamari rolls.”

  I looked up from my menu. “Is that food?”

  “It’s so good. It’s calamari with avocado and sliced mango. Then it comes with a kiwi wasabi sauce.”

  “You lost me at calamari.”

  She smiled. “I’m going to make you try it.”

  “Not a chance in hell.” I smiled and looked back down at my menu. “Steak and chicken combo it is.”

  “Oh come on, you get steak in some way or another everywhere you go. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I don’t do seafood. If it was meant to be eaten by man, it wouldn’t live underwater.”

  She raised one eyebrow in about the most sarcastic way possible and tilted her head. “You eat fish though. Pretty sure fish live underwater, at least they did the last time I checked.”

  “Nope. No fish.”

  She smiled and swiped at me from across the table. “You’re such a little liar. You were telling me last week how every place in Wisconsin has Friday night fish frys and how you wish you could find that down here.”

  I took a drink from my beer. Who would’ve thought that she actually listened to me when I talked. “No. I think that must have been someone else you were talking to—a customer at the bar or something.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” She laughed. “Look at your face. You might be the world’s worst liar.”

  I attempted to hide behind my beer, but she was right, I did have a pretty bad poker face when it came to her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She leaned over the table and kissed me. “At least I know that you can never lie to me with a straight face. I’m making you try the calamari rolls.”

  “Negative.”

  I settled on the steak and chicken combo while Callie got her mango squid deal. We ate, talked and laughed. As far as going out to dinner for a six month anniversary goes, I chalked it up as a success. I ended up trying her calamari. It was awful, but I smiled, told her it wasn’t bad, and forced it down. We finished dinner a little after nine o’clock and headed out of the restaurant. She grabbed my hand as we walked and leaned against me. “You still want to watch a movie?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. Let’s just watch something at your house though. I mean, if that’s OK?”

  “That’s perfect.” I walked Callie to her car then found my shiny new Corvette sitting at the back of the lot away from the other cars. She called me on the ride back to my house and said she was making a stop at the gas station. It gave me enough of a window to give my place a quick once over. Callie hadn’t stayed over in a few days and it was turning back into a bachelor pad.

  I wrestled with Butch at the door and made for the kitchen. The empty beer cans on the table found the trash and the dishes in the sink made their way into the dishwasher. Callie walked in as a few stray articles of clothing met the bottom of the hamper.

  She held a plastic bag with a few items inside.

  “What did you get?” I asked.

  “Twizzlers and gas station wine. Nothing but the good stuff.”

  I laughed. “I hear that gas station wine comes highly recommended.”

  I uncorked the wine and filled two glasses from the cabinet. Callie hugged Butch and talked to him. We sat on the couch and went through the list of on-demand movies looking for something we’d both enjoy. We found the bedroom before finding a movie.

  Chapter 4

  The seedy little bar was fifteen minutes from downtown Tampa. Ray parked the Bentley and stepped out. The small parking lot had a few old pickup trucks and an older Pontiac that didn’t look fit for the road. A trailer park sat just on the other side of the railroad tracks behind a small tree line strewn with garbage. He walked to the front doors noticing the stragglers lurking along the back of the bar in the distance. They were homeless, intoxicated or both. He pulled the front door open and entered. It smelled of smoke and stale beer. The jukebox played a country tune. The place was dark. A handful of neon beer signs lined the walls. The walls themselves were a dingy yellow, stained from smoke. The bar was shaped in an L. It was mirrored on the bottom with a brass foot rail. The top was a thick lacquered wood filled with burns and dents. Ray took the first open seat at the bar. Two stools away on the right was a woman in her fifties. She looked to be a prostitute. To his left was a man passed out at the bar. The bartender walked up. “Get you something?”

  “Yeah, let me get a Jack on the rocks.”

  The bar tender splashed the whiskey over a few cubes of ice and sat it in front of Ray. “Three fifty, Buddy.”

  Ray pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and opened it. Inside sat over a thousand in hundreds and a few hundred in fifties. He slid out a fifty and laid it on the bar.

  The bar tender gave him a sideways glance. “That the smallest you got?”

  Ray took a drink from his glass. “Yeah, is that a problem?”

  “Nah.” He took the bill to the register and brought Ray back his change. “You aren’t from around here, huh?”

  “No.”

  The bartender nodded and went to the phone at the end of the bar. The woman to Ray’s right scooted a seat closer. “You must be from the city. I like men from the city.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Ooh, you’re a big boy.”

  He looked at her hand. It was wrinkled and dirty. She smiled at him exposing a black tooth near the back.

  “Get your hand off of me.” Ray looked back down at his drink and pulled it to his mouth for a sip.

  “Oh, you’re like that?”

  Ray sat his drink back down in front of him and swatted her hand off of his shoulder. “I said get your hand off of me.”

  The woman mumbled somethi
ng that Ray couldn’t make out and went back to her original spot at the bar. He pulled the sleeve of his suit jacket back and got the time from his watch: 9:52 p.m. His contact should have already been there. Ray finished his drink and waved the bartender over. “Let me get one more.”

  The bartender tilted the bottle of whiskey into Ray’s glass. “Three fifty. Are you here waiting on someone or something?”

  Ray slid a five from his change sitting on the bar over to him. “Yeah. Or something.” He picked up the whiskey and took a sip. The front door opened and two men walked in. They took a seat at the other end of the bar. They sat and focused on Ray.

  The bartender grabbed a couple bottles of beer and took them to the two men. He whispered something to them.

  Headlights shined through the front window of the bar. A minute later the door opened and Ray’s contact walked in. He took the seat to his right. “You him?”

  Ray nodded. “What do you know?”

  “Cash first.”

  Ray reached into his inside pocket. He pulled his jacket open far enough to allow the guy to see his shoulder holstered Desert Eagle. He took out an envelope and handed to him. “Now, what do you know?”

  “We have a skiptracer that works downtown. He has something for you. The guy’s name is Scott. He’s expecting your call.” The contact handed him a number on a scrap of paper, stood and walked from the bar.

  Ray slipped the piece of paper into his pocket. He lifted his glass of whiskey from the bar and took a drink. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the men at the end of the bar stare at him.

  This is going to be fun, Ray thought.

  At almost three hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle, Ray was an imposing figure without weapons. Tonight he had a number of them. He finished his whiskey and took the two twenties from the bar. He stuffed them back into his wallet. Ray jammed his billfold back into his inside jacket pocket and undid the button securing his pistol. He stood and walked for the door. The two men stood. Ray walked about five feet outside of the front door and pulled the Desert Eagle from the holster. He turned, faced the door and waited.