Deceitful Moon (25 page)

Manny walked out of Gavin’s room, a note
hanging from
his hand and
a
look on his face that could only be described as hollow.

“Is Gavin okay? ‘Cause you look
like he just bit it
.”

“No, he’s fighting hard.” He handed Sophie the note.

She read
i
t
,
and her eyes darted to his face. “Manny I
. . .
I
. . .
” She couldn’t remember all the times he’d been there for her. The divorce
and her remarriage,
the affair with Lynn Casnovsky, and everything in between. Always strong, as reliable as the sunrise. It was her turn.

Sophie did something rare for her
—
she
s
topped talking and hugged him.

He squeezed her back
,
and then he stepped away. “Thanks Sophie. This one hurts. Thirty-six hours ago, I had lunch with them. We laughed about Stella’s diet
-
plate special. Now she wants to take me out?”

“You’re the brains, but it seems to me we won’t know what’s really going on until we bring her in.”

He smiled. “That’s good thinking from the one who says she never does.”

“Hey. I have to leave something for you to do. I kind of like having you around.”

“The feeling’s mutual. But enough of the touchy
-
feely stuff
.
It’s
time to go to work.”

H
e stood up straight
,
and
Sophie watched most of
the pain on his face disappear like rain on a desert highway. He was no longer Manny Williams, the surrogate son, the caring man who loved the Crosbys, but Manny Williams
,
the cop. The transformation was startling and comforting at the same time.

As they reached the elevator, a small smile formed on her face. If she knew her partner
—and she did—
the bad guys were in deep shit.

Chapter-44

Manny greeted the FBI agents seated around the table, careful to regard Chloe the same as Josh and Max
, b
ut he couldn’t
ignore
the tingle that danced in
the
middle of his chest. She looked
. . .
amazing.

“Long time
,
no see,”
said
Manny.

“Too long,” pined Sophie, batting her eyes at Josh.

“Ah
. . .
it’s been
thirty-six
hours, but good to see you
. . .
both,” replied Josh.

“So you did miss me, didn’t you?” said Sophie.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, detective
,
”
smiled Josh.

This time, it was Sophie’s turn to wear a slack
-
jaw expression.
Ma
n
ny watched to see how his loquacious partner was going to react to being put on the other side of the innuendo fence. Before she could respond,
Alex came to her rescue.

“Well, well. I’m glad you two cleared out your schedules so that you could join the rest of us
,
who are up at
freaking
12:30 a.m. working instead of sleeping, like normal people get to do
.
”

“Sorry. We got tied up at the hospital,” apologized Manny as he and Sophie sat.

“Besides, it does you good to get your panties in a bunch on
c
e in a
while,” said Sophie,
that infamous
mischievous look prancing in her eye
s
.

“Really? Are you the new department shrink? And I don’t wear panties,” responded Alex.

“Not what I heard.”

“We have work to do and no time for this crap
. . .
who told you that?”

“I can’t reveal my sources.”

Manny raised his hands. “
Whoa. It wasn’t me. Besides,
I thought you gave those up
.
”

Josh looked at Alex. “What kind of panties? The little leopard spot ones with lace?”

“What? I expect this crap from them, but you too?” scowled Alex.

“For the record, I guess I’d need to know too,” said Max grinning
.
“
Y
ou know
,
for future reference involving any other cases we might work. If panties come up missing, I’
d
know where they went
.
”

Alex
released
a sigh. “Are we done?”

“Hopefully. Those mental images were getting to me,” Chloe grinned, pouring more coffee.

Manny settled back in his chair, looking at the files stacked in front of Alex. “Before we get on to the forensic evidence, we need to talk.”

“We don’t have
much
to go over anyway,” said Alex. “You all have the reports
,
and I gave the rest a rundown of the MO
f
rom notes
-
in
-
the
-
nose to acid type.
”

“Glad I didn’t piss off th
is
killer,” added Josh. “I’ve grown fond of the men below.”

“Haven’t we all,”
smiled
Sophie.

Josh cleared his throat and leaned back in his
c
hair. “When will I learn
?”

“Learn what? Whatever it is, I’m a great teacher,” said Sophie.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Anyway, the ballistics are weird and Sparky’s working on that. It’s tough to get a match from the hollow points, but not impossible
.
Plus
,
we’re analyzing the black leather they were all tied with and hope to know where
the straps
came from soon. We also figured out the small marks on the backs of the victims appear to be high
-
heel
shoe
punctures. More to come.”

“Thanks
,
Alex.” Leaning forward, Manny spread his hands on the table and sorted out thoughts he never imagined he’d have
.

“I had Mike Crosby released. Stella Crosby is involved in these murders
,
and I believe she shot Gavin.”

His statement resounded like
fireworks
through the conference room, bringing the lighter mood to a halt and replacing it with something from a darker realm. Much darker.

“Are you sure?” asked Josh.

“One hundred percent.” He tossed the note that Stella had written to the
s
pecial
a
gent. “And that’s not all.”

Josh read the message, frowning, and then read it again before he passed it to Chloe. “First things first. Why would Stella do that, or be involved in any of this?”

Manny looked to the ceiling th
e
n back to Josh. “I don’t know. It’s been killing me
.
Maybe Lexy’s death snapped something precious in her mind.
It could be
—
no
,
probably is,
a
f
irst
p
sychotic
e
pisode.”

“Brought on by stress, or depression, at least that’s what the experts
say
,”
confirmed Chloe
. “Unusual, but it makes some sense here.”

“It does.
Lexy was treated so brutally that
. . .
well, you
saw it
. We all did our best, but maybe
Stella
blames us
, in particular
Gavin and me. God knows we blamed ourselves
,” said Manny. “I mentioned to Sophie that her behavior
fits with that kind of trauma
. People react in different ways. This is her response.”

“So
,
she figures what good are you two
? She
wants to make you pay the price and do what the system can’t
d
o, at least in her eyes,” nodded Chloe.

“By taking out these other sickos, she thinks she’s doing the world a favor,” said Sophie.

Manny shrugged his shoulders. “That’s my best guess.
Stella’s
turning fantasy into reality
.
I believe
she’s
swimming in the middle of a
n ocean of pain
that
she thinks
will
never end.”

“I’m sorry
,
Manny. I know you
’
re
close,” Josh
said
softly.

The emotion welled up
,
and it was all Manny could do to keep it inside. Life was constantly changing, that was hard to deny. But changes like this translated into losses that would last the rest of his life. It would take awhile to get his mind around it.
Maybe more than
awhile
.
“I’ll deal with it later; I just never saw it coming.”

“Who would?” said Max.

“I guess you’re right, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Josh slid the note back to Manny. “What do you mean that’s not all?”

Manny explained the call warning him of another murder and the phone call Stella made from the hospital. “I still believe the information was totally legitimate, that Stella was supposed to be at that apartment, but something went wrong.”

“And that she knew you’d find out about the call from the hospital, so you’d come running to Gavin’s room, thus the note,” said Chloe.

“I do, and she was right.”

“But you don’t think she made the warning call to your cell, do you?”
asked
Josh.

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh crap. That means
—
” moaned Sophie.

“
—
that we have more than one killer here. And I think they’re women.”
Manny
frowned and finished his thought. “There might be more than two.”

“I'll give you that the other shooter could be female. It makes sense. But more than two? Why would you say that?” asked Alex.

“I think the timeline for the murders, counting Gavin’s shooting, might be too tight for two people.” Manny leaned forward. “If Stella did what she says she did, she left Gavin’s office about 8:55 p.m. Mike claims he saw her leaving his apartment complex about five and
a
half hours later.”

“The department called Stella to tell her about Gavin at 3:20 a.m.
,
then picked her up to go to the hospital.”

“I follow you so far,” said Josh.

“The guy on the
w
est side
, Ben Morgan,
was killed about 3 a.m., then the victim on the
n
orth end,
Arlo Becker
,
maybe an hour later. She couldn’t have been involved in either of th
ose
attacks.”

“True, regarding the times.
You’re making my head hurt, but true, nonetheless
,
” said Alex.

“But you can’t pinpoint the exact times of death
,
right?” Manny
scribbled on a note pad.

“Yeah, not exactly, but there is no doubt
Morgan
was killed first. The science says so.”

“So
, the killer would’
ve needed twenty minutes to get to the
n
orth side, persuade
Becker
to let her in, do whatever she did, tie him up, use the acid, shoot him
,
then dump his body by the shopping center
on the
n
orth end
where he was found about 5
a.m.”

“Sounds tight, but it could be done,” said Max.

Manny shook his head. “According to the officer who discovered
Morgan’s
body on the West side,
he
wasn’t in th
at
parking lot at 5:30 a.m., but
he
was there
twenty minutes later
on his next
neighborhood
round. So that
—
”