The touch of murder, p.23
The Touch of Murder, page 23
Monster… monster… monster…
Veronica stared at the image that eleven-year-old Max Taylor had drawn. Unlike the boat with the oars, this image was disproportioned.
Unmistakably humanoid, but with a bulging brow and thickened cheekbones conspiring to hide pinpricks of red glowing eyes. The lips stretched far wider than anything remotely natural, and they were thickened at irregular intervals.
A shudder ran through Veronica. This wasn’t just a child’s drawing, but nightmare residue. And nightmare residue had a way of clinging to the vestiges of reality like embers that continue to flit upward even after the fire of their origin had long since been stamped out.
“My boy, he has a, uhh, a vivid imagination,” David Taylor said from behind her.
Veronica couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the picture, and Freddie picked up the slack.
“Sure seems that way. So, Max, this is who you saw behind the sheets?”
In her peripheral vision, Veronica picked up on a subtle nod.
Or maybe it was just a tremor.
“Did you…” Veronica tore her gaze away from the terrifying picture and stared into the boy’s pale blue eyes. “Did you see the monster writing anything on the wall?”
Max nodded again and reached for the paper. Tongue rooted firmly in his cheek, the boy hunkered over the page. A few seconds later, the boy stopped scribbling.
He had written one single word in all capitals at the bottom of the page: SINNER.
All caps.
The boy had been there, all right. And if this monster is what Max saw, then this is what Max saw.
“Max, did you notice anything else? Anything that might help us catch this monster?”
The boy shook his head. Just once, back and forth.
“What about on any of your other walks? On another night?”
The boy didn’t move.
“It’s okay; you’re not in trouble,” Veronica reiterated. “You did nothing wrong. And no matter what you say, you’re not getting to—”
“I-I think I saw someone with a bloody shirt.”
“Max…” the boy’s father began as a warning.
Veronica resisted the urge to shoot the man a scathing look. The only thing that stopped her was not wanting to break line of sight with the boy.
“It’s just—look, it’s a stressful time at home,” David continued. Veronica clenched her jaw, wishing that the man would just shut up and let her talk to Max. “That’s why I was hesitant to bring Max here in the first place. I mean, I was a little embarrassed that he snuck out and went to Needle—sorry, Nettle Point of all places, you know? But, anyways, my brother recently moved in with us. He was just—well, he just finished serving his time and needed a little help getting his feet under him. Not-not dangerous, not at all. Just—well, anyways, sometimes it gets too quiet at home and my brother Alex says that in prison when it’s quiet, that’s bad, right? Something bad is going to happen when you don’t hear anything. So, Max probably just saw him in the middle of the night. And Max has these nightmares, too…” David let out a sigh that was so exasperated that Veronica was finally forced to look at him.
The man’s eyes were beady and his forehead slick.
So far as she could tell, however, he wasn’t lying, wasn’t trying to cover things up. David was just… embarrassed. Like he’d failed as a father.
“It’s okay, I understand,” Veronica said. “Is it alright, though, if we just let Max answer?”
David swallowed, wiped his brow, and nodded.
“Yeah, sure, sorry.”
The man clearly just wanted someone to talk to.
But Veronica wasn’t that person.
She shot him a placating smile, then swiveled back to face Max. She was surprised that the boy was still staring intently at her and hadn’t gone back to drawing, which was clearly his way of coping.
“Max, just tell me what you saw.”
There was a silent exchange between the boy and his father, a look and a shrug, and then Max began to speak. His voice was quiet, barely a whisper.
“Last night,” Max began hesitantly, suddenly no longer able to meet Veronica’s eyes. “Last night, I saw someone in my house. They were putting a bloody shirt in the garbage.”
“And did you recognize this person?”
David inhaled sharply but Veronica pressed on.
“Was it your dad? Your uncle?”
A listless shrug.
Yeah, they were very different, little Gloria Tramell and Max Taylor. Very, very different.
“I didn’t see.”
“Was it the monster?”
“I didn’t see,” the boy repeated. For the first time since entering the room, Veronica thought she detected a hint of deception.
For some reason, she decided not to press.
“You’ve been really helpful today, Max. Thank you so much for coming in.” She picked up the image of the monster. “Can I keep this?”
When Max appeared hesitant, Veronica pulled a $10 bill out of her wallet.
“Consider it your first sale. The first of many,” Veronica remarked with a half-hearted grin. “Because I think you’re going to be a great artist one day.”
“It’s okay, Max. If you want to sell the picture, you can.”
Veronica wasn’t sure if the boy took the money because he was happy about making a sale, or if he just wanted to be rid of it.
It didn’t matter to her.
Veronica folded the drawing and slipped it into her pocket. Then she leaned over and patted Max’s hands.
“Thank you. You’ve really been a great help.”
Before they left the room, Veronica heard Freddie whisper to David Taylor, “We’re going to need your brother’s name, of course.”
“Alex Taylor. I’m sorry that we wasted your time.”
“You didn’t. Thanks for coming forward.”
Veronica left the interview room first and then stared through the glass at David as he collected his son.
When they were gone, Freddie joined her at her side.
“What do you think?” he asked absently as they both looked into the now-empty room.
“What do I think?” Veronica parroted. “I think we have a sketch of our suspect, that’s what I think.”
Chapter 51
“You know, I’m willing to go along with you on a lot of things,” Freddie said. “But you can’t possibly believe that some kind of monster is behind these murders?”
Veronica was driving away from the interview room and toward the location where Jake Thompson had been brutally murdered.
The answer to Freddie’s question, rhetorical or not, was no. Veronica didn’t believe that a hideous Shakespearean beast was prowling around in the dead of night, punishing sinners by tearing their lungs out to make them look like angels and facilitating their ascent to heaven.
But the intellectually disabled man’s mention of a monster in the alley and little wandering Max Taylor’s description were more than coincidental.
How much more, and what it meant for their case, was anyone’s guess.
But Veronica was determined to dig deeper.
Though she didn’t expect it to amount to much, Veronica had put Officer Furnelli in charge of looking into the Taylors, focusing especially on Max’s uncle, Alex.
The crime scene had been cleaned up at least to the same degree as the surrounding area. Garbage still littered the ground, but the chair was gone, the word was scrubbed from the wall, and while there was still a stain on the asphalt it was indistinguishable from a myriad of others.
There was no evidence that someone had been murdered here less than a week ago.
As Veronica pushed the white tarp aside, she felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her.
“I think—” Freddie began, clearly sensing the same thing.
Veronica hushed him and slowly turned. Across the street, a man’s eye peered from the shadows. Freddie reached for his gun, but Veronica once again stopped him.
“It’s fine.” She raised her voice and her arm. “Hi, there, it’s me.”
The man stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Hi.” Veronica indicated to Freddie, who didn’t have a rapport with this man, to stand back and let her do the talking. “Do you remember me?”
“Cop... cop... cop...” Judging by the man’s clothes and the increased grime on his face, Veronica assumed that the man hadn’t changed much less bathed since their last interaction.
“That’s right,” Veronica confirmed, not bothering to correct the man. She wasn’t a cop; she was a detective. “When we first met, you said that a monster killed the man behind the tarp, right?”
The man nodded, and his many chins jiggled.
“Monster... monster... monster...”
“That’s right.” Veronica started to remove a piece of paper from her pocket and the man cowered. “It’s just a drawing. I want to show you a drawing. Is that okay?”
The man hesitated, before saying, “Yes… yes… yes…”
“Just a drawing,” Veronica repeated as she pulled out the picture that Max Taylor had drawn. Beside her, she could almost hear Freddie rolling his eyes. “Is this—” Veronica didn’t need to finish; the way the man’s lips curled in a half-sneer made it clear that this was the monster he had seen. But for her partner’s benefit, Veronica completed the sentence, “Is this the monster that you saw that night?”
The man nodded, and a stream of drool dripped onto his shirt.
“Max… Max… Max…”
Veronica recoiled.
“What? What did you just say?”
The man jabbed a finger at the picture.
“Max… Max… Max…”
“Are you saying Max? Max Taylor? Eleven-year-old boy? Blue eyes?”
The man blubbered incomprehensibly.
“Are you saying that this is Max?” Veronica asked again. She stepped forward, but Freddie stopped her from getting too close.
The man was becoming increasingly agitated.
“I’m sorry.” Veronica cursed herself for moving too quickly for upsetting him. There was nothing else he would tell them. Not tonight.
He was confused, anyway. The man couldn’t possibly have meant Max Taylor.
This time, Veronica slowly and carefully pulled out her wallet, only to peer into the empty pouch; she’d given her last ten bucks to Max for his picture.
“Freddie,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
Her partner begrudgingly handed her a twenty.
“I don’t think I caught your name.” Veronica gestured with the money, and the man snatched it up.
“Mark… Mark… Mark…”
“All right, Mark. Thank you, again. I might come back another time to ask you more questions. Would that be alright?” Mark looked at the money and nodded. “Okay, thank you. Have a good night, Mark.”
Veronica grabbed Freddie by the shoulder and together they walked to her car.
“I don’t know what you think this proves, Veronica. But I don’t think—”
“I don’t know what it proves,” Veronica admitted. “But I don’t know what ‘SINNER’ means, or what’s with the lungs, either. And no, before you say it, I’m not going to put out an APB for a monster if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then—” Veronica was reaching for the door when her phone started to ring. “Damn it.”
She answered.
“Hi Veronica, it’s Kristin Newberry.”
“Hold on, I have Freddie here. I’ll put you on speaker.”
She heard the beginnings of a protest but was already in the process of pulling the phone away from her face and pressing the speaker button.
“It’s fine, go ahead.”
She nodded at Freddie.
“Actually, this isn’t about the case.”
Veronica’s brow furrowed.
“What do you mean?”
Kristin exhaled.
“It’s about Dylan.”
Veronica quickly took the phone off speaker and put it to her ear.
“What about him?”
“I just… Veronica, they dropped the charges.”
Veronica’s jaw fell open.
“What?” She was incredulous. “What do you mean they dropped the charges?”
“I know, I know. I’ve never seen anything like it. They called me in, then brought Dylan and said that he was free to go. That all charges were being dropped.”
“Why would they do that?” But even as she asked the question, an idea started to form in Veronica’s mind. Charges were often reduced, but not dropped. Not unless something catastrophic had happened.
“Like I said, I don’t know. But—I mean, it’s good news.”
“Yeah, it is,” Veronica said absently. “Thanks. Thanks for everything. I owe you one.”
“I’m not sure I did anything, but a nice bottle of Cab Sauv is always welcome. About the other case? No update except that I found no drugs in either Cooper Mills’ or Frank Klarno’s system. Even did a rare drug panel, but still nothing.”
“I figured as much. Thanks again.”
Veronica hung up, and no sooner had she slipped her phone into her pocket than Freddie was on top of her.
“What was that all about?” he asked with more than just passive interest.
“It wasn’t about our case.”
“Yeah, I know, but was it about Dylan Hall?” Freddie’s eyelids peeled back. “Was it?”
Veronica frowned.
“Yeah, it was. They let him go.”
Freddie, who had probably gathered as much from hearing one side of the conversation, looked shocked.
“What?” the man practically gasped.
“Yeah, weird, right?” Veronica tried to open the door, but Freddie was blocking it with her body. She nodded at him.
“Sorry.” Freddie stepped back. “Think you could drop me at the station? There’s something I just remembered that I had to do.”
***
Less than an hour later, Veronica Shade found herself standing alone outside Dylan Hall’s shitty apartment.
Veronica reached up to knock on the crooked door, but it suddenly opened. A man rushed at her, wrapping his long thin arms around her in a tight embrace.
The man, wiry as he was, nearly smothered her. She had to physically push him away after a moment.
“I don’t know what you did, but goddamn it, thank you. Thank you, Veronica.”
Dylan Hall was beaming.
“What I did?”
He nodded enthusiastically.
“You—it was you, right? It had to be you.” Dylan’s smile tempered somewhat, but he still appeared overjoyed.
“Maybe we should talk inside,” Veronica suggested.
“Sure. You want to… well, I don’t have anything to drink. My bad. But you can still come in.”
Veronica took one look over Dylan’s shoulder then changed her mind.
“On second thought,” she said. “Maybe we should just stay out here.”
“Ha—don’t worry, I’m getting some new IKEA shit soon, now that I’m a free man.” Dylan looked more bemused by her comment than offended. “You know, I was going to come see you, to say thanks, you know, but I didn’t know where to go.”
“It’s probably best that I come find you.”
Dylan held his hands up and his bright smile returned. This was a very different man than the one who Veronica had visited in prison.
“You know where I live.”
“Yeah… listen, I don’t…” Veronica sighed, unsure of how to continue.
“Don’t leave me hangin’.”
She cleared her throat and continued.
“I’m not sure I did anything. To be honest, I was wondering what you did.” Not exactly true. This was more of a fishing expedition.
Confusion crossed Dylan’s features.
“What I did?” The man chuckled then he grew serious. “I didn’t flip. I mean, they weren’t my drugs. Hell, even if they were, I’m no rat.” Dylan reconsidered this—he had, after all, been a confidential informant. When he spoke again, his voice was low, reserved. “I’m no rat.”
“I know.” Veronica put a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder and repeated the words. “I know.”
I also know that you had nothing to do with this, Dylan. I know it was all Cole.
A smile crept onto her pale lips, which Dylan misinterpreted as directed at him.
“I’m out. This is a good day, Veronica. A good fucking day.”
“Yeah, it is. And I’m glad.”
“Me too.” Dylan made a face. “I don’t have anything to drink inside, but to celebrate maybe you wanna go to a bar or something. My treat.”
“Why? So you can grab my ass again?”
Dylan’s face turned scarlet.
“I was high—I didn’t—”
“I’m fucking with you. Take care of yourself, Dylan. I’m glad that you’re out.”
“So am I. And I know you’re behind this, Veronica. I don’t know how, or why, but I know. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Chapter 52
Freddie peeled away from the drive-thru, his eyes on the road as he expertly unwrapped the hamburger and took a big bite. Two more, and it was gone.
The second burger went down in roughly the same number of chews.
And the entire time, Freddie never took his foot off the gas. He kept it depressed as he raced across the city.
This was fucked up. This was royally fucked up.
He’d wanted to press Veronica further, ask why Dylan Hall had been released, but he had to be careful. Veronica was smart. Veronica would figure things out. And if he tried to lie to her… well, that was impossible.
This was fucked up.
Tires squealed as Freddie wrenched the wheel to the left. He bumped the curb as he slammed on the brakes.
The door to the shitty DEA headquarters popped open before he made it halfway across the equally shitty parking lot.
Freddie had expected to see Troy Allison, but this wasn’t him.
It was a DEA Agent, two of them in fact, recognizable by their expressions as much as the vests they wore with their thumbs tucked into the armholes.
