The Tangerine Killer (9 page)

Jill wasn’t any more help down at the station than she had been in the motel room. When they finally got her talking, she swore she never saw the man’s face. I sat behind the glass watching the interrogation. Jill couldn’t see me but she kept glancing at the mirror with venomous eyes. I knew the look was for my benefit.

“What kind of an idiot just sits there with their eyes closed when someone in the same room as them is being attacked?”

Olin leant forward with his arms crossed. Jill slunk back in her seat to get away from him.

“All I need is a name. A face. Give me something to work with here.”

“I told you,” Jill whispered. “I’m a victim too.”

Olin flipped open the file on the desk.

“You’re the victim? I see multiple arrests here for possession. A couple for prostitution. Exactly what kind of victim are you?”

Jill’s bottom lip quivered. “Someone’s been following me. I think they want to kill me.”

“And yet you sat there in that room while the life was being choked out of Sam and no one laid a finger on you.”

“I can’t explain it,” she whispered.

“Well you’d better damn try,” Olin yelled. He thumped his fist down on the table and Jill let out a little shriek. That was when Olin’s phone rang. He looked at it, then back to Jill.

“You’d better give me something when I come back.”

I hadn’t expected him to take the call. It had to be important. As soon as he left the room Jill’s tears dried up and her face took on a sour look. She knew how to work the system. Too bad for her Olin wasn’t buying it and neither was I. When he poked his head around the door to get me, he looked pissed.

“Trouble?” I asked.

“None that I would care to discuss with you,” he quipped back, his face red and flustered.

It had to be his ex. “She’s got you by the balls?”

“In a vice that tightens at every turn.”

“Sexy.”

“Yeah. Come on, let’s get some coffee.”

I fiddled with the neck of my shirt as he led me through the precinct, embarrassed by the mark on my neck.

Olin noticed me fussing. “No one cares.”

“I care.”

I set a scowl on my face and tried to look tough and angry but Olin was right. No one seemed to take any notice of me.

 
Cops sat hunched over desks typing out reports and answering phones. The rest had gathered around an empty coffee machine like it was the last watering hole.

“You have to put water and coffee grounds in first Torrington.” Olin slapped a large, beefy man on the back.

“Nah, it’s busted,” Torrington shook his head sadly.

Olin jiggled the wires at the back of the machine. When it gurgled to life everyone cheered.

“You just have to know how to turn her on,” Olin grinned.

“Shame your charms only work on electrical appliances,” I added.

Torrington laughed. “Excellent!”

He raised his hand to slap mine in a high five but I didn’t reciprocate and he was left with his arm hanging in midair like a giant ham waiting to be carved.

“She’s out of your league man,” Olin told him.

“Yours too by the look of it,” Torrington said.

I couldn’t help smiling as I followed Olin back to the interrogation room.

“Going to have another go?” I asked.

“She’s lying,” Olin said. “I can feel it.”

“Do you think she’s involved in all this?” I asked.

“I have a theory.”

“Really? What is it?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“What? Why?”

“Watch and learn.”

He left and reappeared a few moments later in the interrogation room with Jill. This time he had an armful of folders. Her eyes grew wide as she looked from the papers up to Olin’s face.

He set the files down on the table with a thud which sent static through the speakers. Next to them he placed a large cup of coffee which he sniffed suspiciously as he sat down. I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was putting on a good show for Jill.

“I keep telling them I hate this flavored crap but do they take any notice? No.”

He stretched his hands above his head lazily.

“If I wanted nuts I’d pop open a can. When I want coffee, that’s what I want to taste, coffee. Black, strong, caffeine laced coffee.”

Jill’s gaze had risen from the floor and she was now eying the coffee greedily.

“Oh well. Hey, you don’t want it do you?”

Jill nodded and snapped it up quickly before Olin could change his mind.

“You know,” he continued, “we’re all friends here Jill. I help you, you help me. You know what I’m saying, right?”

She smiled falsely. “I’m trying to help, really. I’m just so hopeless at all this.”

She held the coffee close to her mouth like a baby with a bottle, taking little sips.

“You’re not really hopeless though are you? More like hopeful? Or as I like to call it, opportunistic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you thought you were in trouble so you went to Sam instead of coming here to the police. Now why would you do that?”

“I was scared.”

“Too scared to come to us?”

Jill nodded.

“What if, hypothetically speaking, you were being followed?”

“What do you mean hypothetically? I was being followed,” Jill shouted.

“Okay. You were being followed, you were afraid for your life and yet you went to see Sam. Why?”

“She’s smart and she knows things.”

“What kind of things?”

I felt sick as I listened. Olin’s questioning sounded like an easy way for Jill to frame me. I collapsed onto a chair and prayed he knew what he was doing.

“Well, she does things for people.”

“What kind of things?”

“She finds people,” Jill paused.
 
“I think sometimes she makes them disappear too.”

My heart practically leapt right out of my chest. I eyed the door. How long would it take me to make it out of the building? I’d left my damn car back at the motel. I would have to make a run for it, call a cab when I got out of sight. But as I listened it seemed Olin wasn’t interested in pursuing a line of questioning about my work or my dubious past.

“Do you think she knew about you and Frank?”

Jill’s face flushed red. “What about me and Frank?”

“You know,” Olin leant forward on the table. “The sex part.”

“Adultery isn’t illegal.”

“No but it is a pretty good motive for murder.”

“Murder? What murder?”

“Lisa’s murder.”

“Lisa committed suicide.”

Why was she lying? She already told me she thought Lisa had been murdered. Or was that a lie too? I watched Olin as he considered Jill for a moment. Then he leant in and whispered softly.

“That’s what I thought, until I had the body exhumed.”

“You had the body exhumed?” I asked Olin.

“I did.”

“But you said you didn’t have enough evidence.”

“I said I didn’t have enough evidence right then and there. I didn’t say I wouldn’t get that body out of the ground as soon as I could.”

We were back in Olin’s Escalade and I had no idea where we were going. I wasn’t used to tagging along. I was always the one in charge. I picked at a loose thread on my shirt and tried not to act sullen. Olin had refused to take me back to the motel. I got the feeling he was afraid to let me out of his sight.

“Am I in serious danger?” I blurted out. “Because I can take care of myself you know.”

“That’s debatable. Every time we meet something has happened to you.”

“But I’ve come out on top every time,” I joked.

“Only just.”

He was right. The town was bad for me. It pulled me off focus. I knew I wasn’t playing my best game. It was just sheer luck I hadn’t landed in the hospital or the morgue.

“So where are you taking me?”

“Back to the scene of the crime.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one that started it all.”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “You really had Lisa’s body exhumed?”

“Yes, I did.”

 
I was impressed. Sure he could have avoided the whole exhumation thing by stopping the burial but even I knew a threatening note wasn’t enough to get a warrant. Now that note had weight to it.

“So how did she die?”

“My theory is that she was held underwater until she drowned. Her body was then left in the river where it floated downstream and eventually washed ashore in the place where you found it. But that wasn’t where she was murdered and it’s not the place we are looking for.”

“What about the evidence on the body?”

“There wasn’t any, that’s why I had the body exhumed. I want my forensic pathologist to take a look. The coroner down at the county morgue has been on the job for fifty years and is coming up for retirement. He just shuffles the bodies through there as fast as he can. Trouble is you really can’t distinguish between an accidental drowning, suicidal drowning or murder anyway but I want my guy to take a closer look. He knows his stuff.”

“So what makes you think it was murder?”

“A hunch,” he said.

It took ten minutes to get to the river. Ten minutes which we both spent in silence. At one point I felt myself drift off into the first waves of sleep. The late nights were starting to take their toll. I jolted back to reality. There was no way I was going to let Olin think I couldn’t take the pressure. I wound down my window to wake myself up and the air whipped tears from my eyes. The sound of the river greeted us before the water came into sight. Crashing and moaning with a dull roar.

“It’s angry,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing. Are we here?”

“Yes.”

I saw the clearing where I first spotted Lisa’s abandoned car and the little bridge she was supposed to have jumped from.

“Why did the detectives think she jumped?” I asked.

“They found a small strip of cloth from Lisa’s dress, caught on one of the railings. We thought that happened when she stepped over to jump but I think it was planted.”

“Smart.”

“Too smart,” Olin agreed.

He pulled in behind a dozen other cars. Crime scene investigators scuttled about with jars and bags, collecting evidence. Detectives stood around examining maps of the area. The river ran through the national forest, the woods were thick and scrubby with sparse clearings where campers pitched their tents and high school kids made out. I had camped there once. It hadn’t been a very pleasant experience.

“So why do you need me here?” I kept my voice low as we made our way toward the gathering.
 

“You found the body.”

“So?”

“You were first on the scene. You saw everything there was to see.”

“So did you. I didn’t move her if that’s what you think.”

“No, listen,” he pulled me to one side, his hand on my arm. “When you’re the first to see a scene, you really see it. You look on it with a unique perspective because you didn’t expect it to be there and from that point on everyone else who comes knows what they are going to see. It forms certain prejudices in their mind. They can’t help it, that’s just what happens. I need you.”

“Well, if you need me,” I said.

“Don’t make me regret it,” he pulled my arm playfully. “Now come on.”