Everywhere That Tommy Goes (8 page)

“That’d be me.”

“No shit. So what’s this all about?”

“I’ll tell you, but first, I’ve got to be sure I can trust you.”

“Tommy, we knew each other when we were kids. That has to mean something. And didn’t I come here to meet you, even after that bizarre encounter today?”

“I suppose, but this is much bigger than that.”

“You promised me.”

“Yeah, but this could be dangerous, and maybe even get you into trouble with the cops.”

“I was born for trouble, so spill it,” Aurora says, all tough chick.

“Okay, I’ll give you the short version for now.”

“Fine—just get to it.”

“All right, gimme a second.” I take a deep breath and, before I can change my mind, I just spill it fast. “It’s like this. I’ve got this friend who did some very bad things and left me holding the bag. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the cops suspect that I’m the one who committed the crimes. My friend—and I use the term loosely—has disappeared. What’s more, a detective tracked me down this morning. She wanted me to come back to New York to answer questions. They didn’t have a warrant for my arrest, so I refused.”

“Well, that means they don’t have enough evidence to charge you. Maybe you can just tell them about your friend and get out of this mess now.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Why? What did he do—rob a bank or something?”

“Worse.”

“Drugs?” she asks.

“No—worse.”

“Worse? Tell me.”

“Murder.”

“You mean your friend actually killed someone?”

“More than one.”

“No way!” she says, more excited than scared. “So how did you get involved?”

“I witnessed one murder and can’t remember the second one. I blacked out and woke up after she was killed. I didn’t see the actual murder.”

“You have to go to the cops with this.”

“I can’t. There’s more.”

“What more, Tommy?”

“Hey, I can’t even believe I’m telling you this much.”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone, but you have to go to the cops.”

“It’s not so easy. I screwed up and hid the first girl he killed.”

“You
what
?” she screams. “How could you be so stupid?”

“I don’t know. I got caught up in it. Troyer cut out, and I put the girl in my trunk and drove off.”

“Well, you can still go to the cops and tell them. Get a lawyer first. He can make them understand.”

“No, you don’t get it. It’s worse than that. Troyer has been following me. He actually hid in the trunk of my car while I drove down here. When he showed himself, I stupidly let him
come with me to the motel, where he killed another girl and left me covered in blood. You can’t believe how many times he stabbed her. But I have no proof he did it. And I’m sure the cops will find my DNA all over the place. No one will believe my story. Don’t you see? I’m dead.”

“I believe you.”

“Thanks, Aurora, but I don’t think the cops will.”

“Then you have to lay low until we can figure this out.”

I roll my eyes, smirk, and nod sarcastically. “Duh, that’s why I came down here in the first place. But they found me anyway, so what do you suggest?”

“Obviously we have to leave town.”

“We? I don’t think it’s such a great idea for you to get any more involved than you already are.”

“I don’t think you have a choice. You can’t go back to your car or your room, so how do you expect to leave town? I have a car and you can stay with me at my place tonight. We can leave tomorrow morning and no one will ever find you.”

“I already went back to my room, but its okay, I figured out that they were tracking me from my cell, so I took out the battery. I don’t think they know where I am right now.”

“Still, Tommy, I’m sure they’ll find your car, so you can’t use it to get away. Just stay with me tonight and don’t take any more chances. Tomorrow we’ll take off in my car.”

“You really wanna do this for me?”

“Sure, Tommy. I never forgot my first kiss.”

PART TWO

CHAPTER 13

Detective Theresa Stone paced in front of her desk. Her partner, Jake Watts, followed her with his eyes.

“You’ve got to relax, Stone,” Watts said, as he gestured for her to sit down. “Take a load off. The results won’t be in for a while.”

“I know. It’s just that everything takes too long around here. I know in my gut that Sullivan is our guy, but, as usual, procedure prevents me from acting on it. While we wait, he might disappear. Even worse, he could kill someone else.”

“It’s not that I doubt you,” Watts said, shaking his head. “But the evidence is all circumstantial.” He pulled at the two-day stubble on his chin. “I mean, come on—a pizza box in a garbage dumpster?”

Stone slapped the desk. “That pizza box was nearly fifteen miles from the restaurant. Sullivan does the deliveries; he fits the general description; he leaves the jurisdiction right after Houston disappears—oh, and he came off pretty damn suspicious when I approached him in Cape May.”

“Whoa—calm down. I’m not the enemy, but until the DNA comes back, we have nothing—absolutely nothing. So we better expand our investigation; otherwise, if this ever gets to trial, some smart-ass attorney will argue that we focused too soon and failed to consider any other theories or any other suspects.”

“Screw the lawyers. I’m telling you the DNA will confirm it; I feel it in my bones. Then we’ll have enough to get a search warrant and rip his place apart.”

“Yeah, but I’d feel much better if we had a body,” Watts said, then, a moment later, wished that his mouth had come equipped with a backspace key. “Uh, let me rephrase that—if we knew what happened to the girl.”

“Right—let’s not jump the gun. We have to hold out some hope that she’s still alive somewhere.”

“Of course,” Watts said, loosening his too-small necktie. “Although the blood at the scene suggests otherwise.” Watts grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this. No matter how many violent crimes we investigate, I can never wrap my head around the senselessness of it all.”

“Wake up, Watts. The world is filled with sickos, psychos, and nut jobs, and trying to make sense of it is a waste of time. You’ve been doing this a lot longer than I have, and you know it’s our job to catch them and get them off the street . . . and make sure they stay off the street. Analyzing why they do it is for the shrinks.”

“Precisely why we have to handle this one carefully. Without a body, and with little evidence, we have to be sure. And consider also that we don’t want to put the wrong person behind bars.”

“True.” Stone said. “But I feel this one in my gut.”

“Fine—then let’s make the case . . . the right way. Solid evidence first, then we arrest him.”

“Always reeling me in, aren’t you?”

“Just being your partner, Stone. I know you’re one of the best out there, and I’m by your side every step of the way, but sometimes even you need a little help from me.”

“Gotcha. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, so you just keep on doing what you do.”

“And you, too, partner.”

“Don’t worry—I will.”

“Uh-oh.” Watts said, doing a double take. “I’m not sure I like that look on your face. What are you doing that you haven’t told me about?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Need to know basis, Watts. Just trust me.”

CHAPTER 14

Stone was asleep at her desk waiting for the results to come in. Watts fielded the call from the lab and made some notes on a pad as he stared at the sleeping detective. Shaking his head, he smiled flatly.

“Stone, wake up. The results are in.”

Abruptly lifting her head from the desk, Stone shook off the sleep, rubbed her eyes, and focused. “Okay, then: spill it. What’d they find?”

“Well, it looks like you were right; the DNA is a match.”

“I told you.” Stone jumped up and shouted. “Let’s go pick up the search warrant. We need to do this now.”

“Slow down there, partner. It’s ten o’clock at night. No judge is going to be available to sign it until tomorrow morning.”

“Come on, Watts—who do you think you’re talking to? The warrant’s already been issued.”

“How can that be?”

Stone laughed. “I had the prosecutor’s office apply for it this morning, in anticipation of the result. I simply stretched the truth and told them the results were already in. We just have to go and pick it up.”

“You’re too much. You know procedurally that could pose a problem.”

“This is the real world, Watts. We don’t have the luxury of time. Evidence tends to disappear if you don’t search it out fast enough. Now let’s get moving.”

Less than an hour later, Stone and Watts pulled up to the Sullivan home in Bellerose, Queens. The neighborhood was quiet. The only light illuminating the area radiated from the porch lights of the row houses that lined the suburban street.

Stone took the lead and rang the doorbell repeatedly until a light clicked on inside the home. The door opened, and a balding, gray-haired man, wearing a stained white undershirt, greeted the two detectives.

“Can I help you?” the old man slurred. His breath, and the stink of his sweat, was of cheap whiskey. “Heyyy,” he said, stretching the word into a long wheeze. “Weren’t you the cops that came here the other day looking for my son?”

“That would be correct, sir,” Watts said as he eyeballed the drunken man.

“I tol’ you guys, I ain’t seem him for days. What the hell you want from me at this time a night?”

Stone held up the warrant. “We have a search warrant, and we need to search this place.”

“Now? You kidding me—this time a night? What’re you—some kinda Communists? This is America. You can’t just come barging into a man’s house in the middle of the night.”

“This warrant says we can, Mr. Sullivan,” Stone said, firmly. “Move out of the way and let us do our job.”

Watts stepped forward and brushed the old man aside. “Where is your son’s room? We’ll start there.”

“I want a lawyer,” Sullivan demanded. “You can’t do this.”

“You’re welcome to call a lawyer any time, sir.” Stone offered.

“This time a night—you gotta be joking.”

“In the meantime, where is Tommy’s room?” Watts asked again.

Sullivan pointed to the stairs. “It’s down there. Just don’t make no mess. I ask that kid a hundred times a day to keep it clean down there, and he does what he’s tol’. You hear me?”

The old man trudged off into the living room, opened a cabinet, and took out a bottle of whiskey. He took a long pull from it, walked over to the stairs, and hollered down at the two detectives. “So what kinda trouble is my stupid-ass son involved in that’s got you all worked up this late at night?”

Ignoring him, Stone stopped in the doorway, wide-eyed and mouth agape. “Holy crap, would you look at this place? It’s immaculate. Everything is so damn neat.”

Watts squeezed through the door and opened the closet. “This guy is seriously disturbed. All his clothes are tightly folded and stacked. Even the hangers are evenly spaced apart.”

Stone shook her head. “It reminds me of my days in the service.” She patted the bed. “Look at these bed sheets: they’re sharply wrapped underneath the mattress.”

“I’ll bet you can bounce a quarter off them.” Watts pulled open the dresser drawers and admired the neat rows of socks and underwear. “There’s not a speck of dirt here.”

“Just our luck,” Stone said, as she examined a pair of sneakers that she pulled from under the bed. “Go check out the laundry room. I’ll go through the rest of this room.”

Watts nodded, left quickly, and began searching the washroom.

Minutes later, he called out to Stone. “There’s not much in here. Just a pile of smelly undershirts and clothes, which clearly belong to the old man. No bloody clothes or anything to link this guy to the girl. And no laundry has been done for days. The old man probably has the kid doing it for him, but since he’s not around, it’s just building up here.”

“Sounds about right,” Stone said.

“One thing though: there’s a container of bleach, mostly empty. And the cap isn’t screwed on right.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You know, the threads—they aren’t lined up, like someone was in a rush and didn’t close it properly. It’s also a little out of place. If you think the bedroom is far too neat, you’ve got to see this. Every container is faced out like they do at the grocery store. The labels are all lined up and facing out, except for the bleach. That label is turned around and almost backward.”

“May be nothing, but you never know. Bag it and keep looking.” Stone eyeballed the computer on the desk, “Watts, get back in here. He’s got a computer.”

Watts grinned. “You know, I just love digging into a perp’s personal life directly though his computer. Turn it on. Let’s see if we can get in.”

“I’m way ahead of you, partner. It’s already booting up. If we’re lucky, he won’t have a password; otherwise, we’re going to have to bring it in and have one of the geeks look at it.”

Watts took his place behind Stone, watching as the icons loaded on the screen.

“Check the word-processing directory.”

“I know the drill.” Stone said, as she rolled the mouse and double-clicked the Word icon.

She scrolled to the index. “There’s only a few files, I’ll check the latest one first.”

Stone opened it and began to read:
A while back I experienced a life changing event and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. On a scale of one to ten, it was a twelve. Two guys followed me out of a bar, cornered me in an alley, and started kicking the shit out of me. They would have killed me, but this dude showed up out of nowhere and laid them out like it was nothing. He totally saved my life
.

I’ve gotten to know Troyer Savage over the last few months and I have to say he is one very cool dude. We’ve become friends and he’s been teaching me some of his moves. He’s taught me a few wicked fighting skills and schooled me on some of the finer points about how to score with chicks. The guy is smooth as silk and tough as nails. Troyer says if I play my cards right, I can be too
.

Tonight I’m meeting Troyer at Club Radical
.