Dancing in the Dark Page 4

“Jesus, I can't imagine.” And he couldn't. Despite the fact that he dealt with horrible things day in and day out, it was never personal. At least not like that. “She seems okay, though.”

  “I think she does all right, but I know Bess is always on her to get out more. Build something new.” Tony eyed his partner. “Maybe you're just the ticket.”

  “Are you kidding? I'm the last thing someone like her needs.”

  “You sell yourself short, Eric …” He trailed off with a shrug.

  “I helped her because she's Bess's friend.” He emphasized each word as if his friend were deaf. “End of story.”

  Tony held up his hands in mock defense. “All right already. I get the picture. You don't want to talk about it.”

  “There isn't anything to talk about.” Usually Tony's dogged perseverance was an asset, but just at the moment it was definitely not. He made a point of picking up the Wallace file. “You get anything from Earth Free?”

  His partner sobered, realizing that he'd gone far enough. “Yeah. I got a list of local places that use the product. They grouped it geographically. So I figure we concentrate on the places east of I-35 and north of Town Lake. And since the other two women were found in their apartments, I'm guessing we're looking for a residential hotel or apartment building.”

  “Probably a hotel. An apartment building isn't going to use the same cleaner for each apartment. And this stuff isn't available for residential use, right?”

  “Not unless somebody stole the stuff.” Tony tossed the list on his desk. “Damn needle in a haystack.”

  “Maybe not.” Eric picked up his notes. “We might be able to narrow the search. Lydia Wallace seems to have frequented an area around Twelfth and Chicon. There's even an old address there. If we cross-check that against your list, we might find something.”

  “Like where she was killed. You know, maybe we were too quick to assume a change in M.O. Maybe someone else moved her.”

  “Someone who wouldn't want the attention accompanying a corpse on the carpet? Makes sense. That the list?” Eric nodded at a manila envelope in Tony's hand.

  “Yup.” He sat down at his desk, pulling out a stack of papers. “So what do you say we narrow it down? It beats the hell out of sitting here watching you moon over Sara Martin.”

  Just the mention of her name sent his senses reeling, but he had more important things to think about. He reached for a page from the list, firmly pushing all thoughts of Sara Martin out of his head.

  It was time to catch a killer.

  Chapter 4

  “Not much of a place to live.” Tony frowned at the peeling paint and fading wallpaper.

  “Beats the streets.” Maynard Tompkins, the hotel manager, shrugged, stepping back to allow them access to the room.

  “I'm not so sure.” Eric stepped over warped floorboards, careful not to touch anything. The Tejano Hotel wasn't exactly a five-star establishment. Hell, it probably didn't even rate the moniker hotel. It was eleven of twelve on their list of possibles, but perseverance had paid off. Lydia Wallace had called it home.

  The room was small. Closet sized, really. A bed and broken-down chest of drawers were the only furniture in the room. The odor of pine cleaner permeated the air. The bed was stripped, and an open drawer gave testament to the fact that the room was empty.

  “She ain't been here for a week or so.” The older man shifted nervously from foot to foot, eyeing first Tony, then Eric.

  “So you emptied the place?”

  “She hadn't paid rent in almost a month. What'd you expect me to do?” He edged closer to the door, his eyes darting around the room. “I gotta make a living.”

  “So much for a caring landlord.” Tony exchanged a glance with Eric, and crossed the room to open the closet door. Like the rest of the room, it was empty. “What'd you do with her things?”

  “There wasn't nothing here. Honest. I figured she run out during the night.” He was biting his lip now, worry creasing his forehead.

  “You didn't think to call in a missing person's report?” Eric already knew the answer, but wanted to rattle the guy's cage.

  “On someone like that?”

  Eric walked over to the bed, searching for something that might yield answers. The guy was a regular bleeding heart. But then maybe bleeding was the operative word. He frowned at a brownish stain just at the edge of the bed, leaning over to examine it more closely.

  It was small, no bigger than a quarter, with streaks of white where the floor had been scrubbed. Scanning the rest of the floor, he saw similar spots of varying diameter, and recognized them for what they were. Spatter.

  Blood spatter. There was a telltale pattern, despite the effort to wash it away.

  “Tony, check this out.” Eric straightened, nodding at the floor, his gaze locked on the manager.

  Tony knelt by the bed, eyeing the stains, then reached up to lift the mattress. The underside was black with dried blood. “Is there something else you want to share with us, Maynard?”

  “Like maybe what you found up here?” Eric added.

  “I didn't find anything.” The man crossed his arms over his chest, his face purposefully blank, but his eyes told a different story as they darted back to the stained mattress. There was fear there. Eric could almost smell it.

  “I kind of doubt that. Judging from the blood spatters on the floor, and the stain on this mattress, I'd say you found a lot more than you bargained for.”

  Maynard backed up, shaking his head. “I didn't do nothing but clean the room. The stains were already there.”

  “You sure about that? Seems to me it's more likely you're the one who put them here.” Tony's eyes narrowed, his tone harsh.

  “No way. I only found her.” Maynard stopped, realizing his error, clamping his mouth shut with an audible click, his fear obvious now.

  “Found her, how?” Eric moved closer, cutting the manager off from the door.

  “Dead.” The man's voice broke. “She was all beat up. I ain't never seen nothing like it. And I've seen a hell of a lot.”

  “So, what, you stashed the body and cleaned up the mess?” Tony's disbelief was palpable.

  “No. I called her … manager.”

  “Guy got a name?” Tony pulled out a pad.

  “Alturo Ramirez.” The man was breathing easier. Maybe there was something to the notion that confession was good for the soul.

  “And between the two of you, you tossed the body?”

  “Nah. That was Ramirez. I just cleaned up the mess.” He shuddered at the memory. “I gotta re-rent the room.”

  “What time did all this happen?” Tony asked.

  “A couple of days. Monday, I think. I knocked, and the door just opened. So I came in and she was there on the bed.”

  “Dead.”

  “Oh yeah. Real dead.” The man's eyes were locked on the bed now, as if he were seeing her again. “She was cut up bad. And tied to the bed. It was almost like she was sleeping. Except her eyes were open. Wild kinda. Like she was still screaming.”

  “So why didn't you call the police?”

  The man swung around to face Eric. “I didn't need the trouble. And Alturo said nobody was gonna miss her.”

  “Well, he was wrong.”

  “So what happens now?” Maynard had deflated, leaving him pale and shaken. “Am I under arrest?”

  “What do you think?” Eric eyed the man with disgust. “But if you help us now, I guarantee it'll play better for you in the long run.”

  “I told you what I know.”

  Tony nodded, closing his pad. “Yeah, well, you're going to have to tell us again. Down at the station. And this Alturo person is going to have to corroborate your story. You know where we can find him?”

  Maynard nodded. “He lives two blocks down. Above the Roxie.”

  “How about Lydia's effects? You still say there wasn't anything here?”

  “Nah, I got 'em in a box. Downstairs. Figured I'd sell what I could. Make good on what
she owed me.”

  “Guess you figured wrong.” Eric reached for his handcuffs, as Tony turned the man around. “Those effects belong to us now. We'll collect them on the way out.”

  Tony smiled, the gesture not reaching his eyes. “Before they have a chance to disappear.”

  The three of them walked into the hallway, the manager between them. “One more question, Maynard.” Tony's voice was deceptively soft. “Was there music playing? When you found her, I mean?”

  “Yeah. Some romantic shit.”

  Eric looked at Tony, the air suddenly chill despite the suffocating heat of the hallway. “You recognize the singer?”

  The little man nodded. “Sinatra. It was Frank Sinatra.”

  The conference room was packed with press from all across Texas present. Even a few folks from national publications. Serial murders were big news, especially in a society that thrived on voyeurism. The fact that the dead women were all prostitutes only made it better. Insulating the crimes from the mainstream. Providing people with a false sense of security.

  There but for the grace of God …

  Sara shook her head, clearing her thoughts, concentrating instead on the angle of the shot. Ernesto Sanchez wasn't an easy man to photograph. His bald head was perpetually shiny, and he had a way of scrunching his nose that made him border on unattractive, and unfortunately the more nervous he was, the more he scrunched.

  Not that it mattered. If they used the mayor's picture at all, it would be a tiny black-and-white buried in the middle of the article. Press conference photos weren't the stock-in-trade of magazines like Texas Today. Real-life shots were more the norm. Political statements, as it were. That's why she liked doing pieces for the magazine. It gave her an opportunity to use art to tell a story.

  Sanchez turned, the light hitting him just right, and for an instant his emotions were naked for the camera: anxiety laced with fear, and a grim determination that came from experience. She snapped the shot. A moment captured for eternity.

  “You get that?” Nate's voice was only just above a whisper.

  She nodded, not taking her eye off of the mayor. “He may not have much to say verbally, but it's all there in his face.”

  “At least we'll have that.” Nate's tone was despondent. “So far he hasn't said anything that we don't already know.”

  “You weren't expecting him to, were you?” She cast a sideways glance at Nate. He wore the hopeful expression of a kid, and her heart went out to him. He tried so hard.

  “Not really.” He shrugged. “But a guy can always hope.” His ever present smile was a bit dimmer than usual.

  “Your time will come, Nate. You just have to be patient.”

  The mayor paused for a moment, turning to listen to an aide, the silence demanding their attention. The other man was talking rapidly, his hands moving to underscore his words. Sara felt her skin tingling. Something was happening. Something important.

  Nate stepped closer to the podium, his attention focused solely on the mayor. He felt it, too.

  Mayor Sanchez turned back to the podium, his expression grim. “Ladies, and gentlemen, I've just been informed that we have an I.D. on the latest victim. It has been confirmed that she was indeed a prostitute.” He paused, and Sara could actually hear the pens scribbling on paper. “Sources inform me that she was sixteen years old with no known family.”

  “You got a name?” someone asked.

  The mayor glanced over at the aide, who shrugged in answer. Sanchez turned back to the crowd. “Her name was Lydia Wallace …”

  Sanchez's voice faded, and Sara's knees buckled, her blood rushing from her head.

  “Sara?” Nate's hand clasped her arm, holding her upright. “What's wrong?”

  She struggled to find her voice. “Lydia Wallace.”

  “What about her?” Nate's arm slid around her, the touch comforting somehow.

  She looked up at him, his face swimming slowly back into focus. “She's the girl I photographed for the article I've been working on.”

  “You can sit here looking sullen all you want, Ramirez, but I get to leave when I've got to take a leak. You, on the other hand, are stuck here for the duration.” Eric looked pointedly at the two empty Coke cans sitting in front of Alturo Ramirez.

  The punk was only a little older than the vic. Cocky and full of false security. He had a rap sheet thick enough to pad a cell, but at the moment he wasn't talking.

  “We know you moved the body. And according to some of the other girls, we know you had a fight with Lydia the night she died. So it isn't hard to connect the dots.”

  The guy frowned, glaring up at him with the kind of insolence only a kid can accomplish. How the hell he'd wound up a pimp was anyone's guess.

  “You getting anywhere?” Tony poked a head into the interrogation room, already knowing the answer. He'd been watching the whole thing through the two-way. Hell, the kid probably knew it as well. But the dance had been choreographed and there was no changing the steps.

  “Our friend here isn't talking.” He walked over to Tony, pitching his voice lower, but not so softly that Alturo couldn't hear. “Not sure he's playing with a full deck anyway.”

  Ramirez's eyes narrowed even further, but Eric caught a flicker of something in them.

  “You tell him we got DNA?” They didn't. But Tony hadn't said they did.

  This time they got a reaction. “I didn't do her.”

  Both detectives swung around, Eric straddling the chair across from Ramirez and Tony sitting on the corner of the table. “Do her, how?”

  “ No way. I didn't do her no way. I fought with her, sure. Even roughed her up some. She was holding out on me. Taking money on the side.” His hands cut through the air, underscoring his words. “But I didn't kill her.”

  “You just helped Maynard move her.”

  “That old fart? He didn't do anything except come crying to me. I was the one who hauled her ass out of there.”

  “And put her in a dumpster.” Tony's face reflected his disgust.

  “Where'd you want me to put her?”

  Eric fought the urge to slam the jerk up against the wall. He wasn't worth it. “You could have called the police.”

  “And wound up here?” The sarcasm wasn't entirely out of place.

  Tony smiled. “You're here, anyway. And the way I see it, you're in a world of trouble.”

  “Look, I moved her.” The man's bluster had evaporated. “Maybe I shouldn't have, but I owed Maynard.”

  It was the beginning of a dialogue and Eric recognized the opportunity. “You tell us what you know, and if it's worth it, then we'll talk to the DA.”

  “Not good enough.” The hard-eyed stare erased all semblance of youth. “I talk, I want a guarantee.”

  Tony nodded, slightly.

  “All right. You help us, we'll help you.”

  Their gazes met and held, and finally Ramirez nodded, then looked down at his hands. “Lydia'd only been working for me a couple of months. So I didn't know her all that well. But she was a real piece of work. Mouthing off all the time.”

  “No respect for authority.” Tony put just the right touch of sincerity into his voice, and Eric tried not to smile.

  “Exactly.” The hands were waving again. Ramirez was on a roll. “Anyway I knew she'd been stiffing me, so I called a meeting.”

  “What time?”

  “Monday night, around ten. We met at the Roxie.”

  The Roxie was a tit bar close to the hotel. A major hangout for hookers. “And you roughed her up.”

  “That wasn't my intention. But she took a swing at me. So I hit her. Twice. She promised to pay and I figured we was square.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “I don't know for sure. But the whole conversation only took about fifteen minutes.”

  “And you didn't see her again until Maynard called you?”

  “That's right. He paged me. It was about two in the morning. Said she was dead. And asked me to hel
p him get her out of there.”

  Eric blew out a breath. “So when you got there, had Tompkins moved her?” He already knew the answer, but he needed to confirm the details.

  “No. She was just like he found her. And it was real ugly.”

  “Describe it.” Tony's fist clenched, the only outward sign of his anger.

  “She was lying on the bed, her hands tied to the headboard Her blood was all over the mattress and the floor. She'd been stabbed.” Ramirez swallowed convulsively, the memory obviously getting to him. “A lot.”

  “That it?”

  “No.” He shook his head, closing his eyes. “Her fingers were missing. We looked for 'em, but couldn't find nothing. And there was a bat. The bastard used a bat—”

  “Any idea where it came from?”

  Ramirez opened his eyes, and nodded. “It was Lydia's. She was nuts about baseball. Especially the Express. She won the bat at a game. Even got it signed.”

  “Did you know Laurel Henry or Candy Mason?”

  His eyes widened. “The other women? No way. Never even seen 'em. They didn't work the neighborhood.”

  Tony sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “How about the night of the murder? You see anyone suspicious hanging around the Tejano?”

  “Shit, man, the place is crawling with strangers. That's the whole fucking point. Everyone looks suspicious. No one wants to be seen. You know what I mean?”

  Eric nodded. “How about music. You hear music?”

  “You talking about that crap that was playing on the boom box?” Ramirez pulled a face. “Some shit about knowing you. The kinda stuff my old man listens to.”

  “And Lydia?”

  “No fucking way. There wasn't a romantic bone in her body. She was heavy into Staind and POD.”

  Unsure if he was horrified or elated, Eric blew out a long breath. They had confirmation from two sources. Which meant there wasn't any doubt. They were definitely dealing with a serial killer. And he wasn't going to stop with three.

  Chapter 5

  Sara tried to keep her mind on the traffic, but instead all she could see was the face of Lydia Wallace—too old for her years, but still with the light of hope in her eyes. And now she was dead.