Deceitful Moon (35 page)

“Won’t they know the call is from here?” asked Manny.

“No, we swapped cards, remember? Anyway we got no answer on the first five. Here’s the weird part. I jumped to the last number called from her phone, the one at about 3:38 a
.
m
.
,
and the PDA you brought in from the White Kitty lady started to vibrate. And
voilà
, the number on that screen was the one I was calling from.”

“So that proves the caller and Evelyn were linked,” said Josh.

“Yep. But there’s one more thing
. . .
well
,
actually t
w
o more things.”
Buzzy
stood up, unable to conceal her excitement.

“Easy girl. Pretend it’s the last frame
,
and you need a strike to hit the mystical 300 game,” said Manny.

“You mean take a deep breath?”

“I do.”

“Got it. Whew! So I compared the next
-
to
-
last call, and it went to the same number, only about
eight
minutes earlier.”

Manny shifted in his chair. Not caring for where this was headed. “So either the killer called twice
—
”

“
—
or Ross knew Evelyn Kroll,” finished Sophie.

“
Say Manny’s right
,
and the killer called Kroll twice
.
H
ere’s the second thing
, t
he phone Manny brought in from the alley
, t
he one covered in rat spit
—
which I had to clean, thank you very much
—
had been used a few times in the last twelve hours. There were only three calls on that one. The first two were made yesterday. I tried them
,
and no one answered. But here’s the kicker, I recognized the third one. That one was made about 10:02 last night.”
Buzzy
lowered her eyes
,
then sat down. “That one went to Kroll’s phone too.”

“Damn it.” Manny leaned back in his chair. “So
Ross
was part of this Justice Club thing?”

“If not, she knew Evelyn and didn’t tell you,” said Josh. “That makes it a problem.”

Manny’s gut
twisted
from one side to the other.
If
it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck,
i
t’s a damned duck.
“She was involved. No doubt in my mind
.
”

No one disagreed.

“So Stella,
Ross
, and Evelyn
were
in this
psycho
C
lub. Is that all?” asked Sophie
,
h
er face as somber as Manny had ever seen.

“We’ll know when we find her.”

He turned to
Buzzy
. “I need you to do whatever it takes to ID those other numbers from both phones. Contact the
carriers
that issued them.”

“Once you ID what companies assigned those numbers, tell them the FBI will subpoena all the records, if they have to,” said Josh. “Usually th
ey
want the warrant, but sometimes we get lucky.”

Buzzy
stood up and saluted. “I’ll get right on it.”

Alex pushed his chair away. “Max and I’ve got a ton of shit to go through, including ballistics, fibers, blood types, particulates, and I’m hungry as hell
,
so I’m ordering out for breakfast and doughnuts.”

Max followed Alex’s lead. “I heard that, and you’re buying.”

“I like the breakfast idea, then we need to keep looking for Evelyn. We put the APB out for her, but she’s going to be hard to find,” said Josh.

“Maybe not,” said Manny. “She may not know that we know she’s a Justice Club member.”

“Unless that goon at the White Kitty got hold of her,” said Sophie. “You should have turned me loose on him.”

“I don’t think he wants any trouble. I say he’s in the dark, at least some.”

“You might be
—
”

Buzzy
’s yelling from outside the room interrupted Josh. “Hey
,
who are you? You can’t just go in there.”

Two men dressed in black suits and ties
entered
the room.

Manny recognized one of them from St. Thomas.

“What are you two doing here? You should be at the jail watching Argyle,” said Josh, scowling.

The one that Manny recognized spoke. “I don’t know how it happened, but
—shit—
Argyle’s gone.”

“What the hell do you mean
gone
?” asked Manny grabbing the agent’s jacket with both hands.

“He
. . .
ah
. . .
is not in his cell. He escaped.”

Chapter-61

Louise Williams fell into bed exhausted after putting
Sampson
outside. The dog loved to sleep on the deck in hot weather
,
and who could blame him?

She’d stayed up late, waiting for Manny
to
call. He didn’t. She worried.
Then
,
he
finally
called to check in
. H
e said he would be home in the morning
,
and they’d talk. That was either a very good thing, or he was hiding something from her. She bet on the latter.

She hated when Manny worked the all-night shift, and he did it far too often to suit her taste. He was a good man, but whipping that workaholic thing was never really going to happen
.
S
he knew that going in. He wasn’t going to be just
her
white
k
night; she was going to have to share him.
She supposed t
here were worse things.

At least tonight’s situation was understandable. All the local TV stations were ranting about the serial killer and the victims, and no way was Manny going to leave those investigations alone, not even for a minute. He’d die first. That thought made her stomach dance with butterflies.

So damn noble
.

Before he’d left last night, she sent Jen, their daughter
,
to spend the night at her friend
’
s
.
That was
no
problem
. Teenagers would always rather spend the night away than stay home
anyway
.

It had been a busy night, like always, when he was working. She cleaned, washed, rearranged, got something to eat
,
and then back at it. No rest for the weary. She
sighed
, pulling the sheet around her neck. Or like her mother used to say, no rest for the wicked.

Her eyes closed as she thought about what that really meant.
She decided she
preferred the weary
adage
.

Louise
turned to her side and was almost gone when she heard the ringing, then the barking. Both sounded far away, like a dream. Then both started again. She
grasped
it was the phone and
Sampson
. Her eyes blinked open and she thought about ignoring it, but realized it was probably Manny. Not to mention she’d better get the dog in before every neighbor on the block threw a hissy fit. But she was so tired.

Finally
,
she
reached for her robe, leaned out of bed
, and shuffled to
the phone.

“Good morning
,
Louise
.
Y
ou’re looking as tasty as ever
.”

Louise Williams froze, clutched her chest, then turned to run.
But g
etting away wasn’t in the cards
.

Argyle pulled her close and covered her face with the chloroform-laced cloth. His laugh haunted her mind as the world went dark.

Chapter-62

“She’s not answering,” said Manny,
h
anging up the phone. His heart
resided
somewhere near his ankles as he rushed out of the room.

“Wait, I’m coming with you,” yelled Sophie.

“Me too,” said Alex
.

Manny heard the scrape of chairs behind him, but it didn’t really register. He had to get home, now. Argyle escaping only meant one thing
:
he was going to finish what he started on the
Ocean Duchess
. His words echoed over and over in Manny’s mind as he raced down the steps and climbed into his SUV.

I want you all to suffer the way I did, to walk a mile in my shoes.

He reached to start the vehicle
—
and there were no keys. “Shit!’ He slammed his fist on the steering wheel just as the passenger door swung open.

Sophie tossed him the keys. The engine roared to life
,
and he tore out of the parking garage, allowing a fast-moving Alex just enough time to shut the back door.

“I’ll keep calling,” said Sophie,
c
ell phone
glued to her
head
.

Manny nodded and said nothing. His thoughts rac
ed
to a
B
ible verse he memorized as a young man.

God protects us from evil
. . .

He needed, prayed,
the verse
to be true this morning because
A
rgyle was evil
embodied
.
Maybe worse.

Manny turned the corner of his street and saw lights flashing from three cop cars
. He
floored it again.
The Feds had sent cars, but this didn’t feel good. The fact that no one had radioed him made his angst climb a higher wall.

Pulling up in front, he leaped out of the truck and rushed headlong into the house, ignoring advice from the three Feds standing on the stoop. The
ir
warnings raised his panic to a level he’d never experienced.

What
don’t
they want
me
to see?

He burst through the living room, past the kitchen
,
and ran squarely into one of Lansing’s finest
, a
woman officer named
Molly
Holt.

“
Molly
, what’s going on
;
where’s Louise?”

“Manny.
We
got here first
. T
he front door was cracked open a few inches. We entered and secured the house and didn’t find anything
. . . ah . . .
until
. . .
”

Her eyes darted to his chest than back to his face.

His panic escalated
. Then he started for the bedroom.

“There’s no one in the bedroom, except your dog. He was howling like
. . .
well, you know the sound, so we put him in there and that seemed to calm him.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Manny.

Sophie and Alex stood off to the side staring at their shoes.

“There’s a body in the family room, behind the sofa. But Manny
—
”

“A body?” He spun on his heels, feeling nothing and everything. Surreal didn’t cover it but neither did dread. His mind seemed to be trapped between reality and the unperceived, the impossible, and
was
in danger of staying that way.

Not Louise. Please God, not Louise
.

The old familiar out
-
of
-
body encounter held his hand as Manny stepped through the arched doorway and onto the carpet, his eyes fixing immediately on the woman’s blood-smeared feet protruding from
behind
the burgundy sofa.
From the back bedroom,
Sampson
let loose a spine-chilling howl.

The four Feds moved out of his way, parting like the Red Sea at
Mos
e
s’
s
command. He swallowed hard and took an unsteady pace toward
hell
on earth.