James Conway - In Cold Blonde

“Tell me about her,” Syd said. “The Lady in Red.”

“Blonde, very pretty. Sultry, I think that’s the word. Did she really kill someone? Is there a body in there?”

“All we can tell you is we’re conducting a murder investigation,” Hanrahan said.

“Edna was walking down the hall with her dog when the Lady in Red came out of the suite,” Ryan said. “Maggie ran into the suite just as the door was closing.”

“No wonder she wouldn’t open the door for me,” Edna said. “I thought she was a little suspicious, but I never dreamt she was a cold-blooded killer.”

“Why did you think she was suspicious?” Syd asked.

“The way she acted when Maggie got locked inside. She got, what’s the word, discombobulated. Very nervous. Oh, and did I mention the gloves?”

“No,” Ryan said. “She was wearing gloves?”

Edna nodded. The kind you see on TV all the time, on CSI and such. The kind doctors wear. And some of the police I see here.”

Syd pulled her pair of surgical gloves out of her pocket. “Like these?”

“Exactly. Criminals wear them so they won’t leave fingerprints, right?”

“That’s right, ma’am,” Hanrahan said.

Edna’s eyes drifted to the body on the floor. “Seeing that poor man must be what made Maggie sick.”

“What’s that? Sick, how?” Syd asked.

Edna grimaced at the memory. “She threw up when I got her back into my room. Coughed up some food.”

Hanrahan, Ryan and Syd exchanged a knowing look. The dog must’ve eaten the missing penis. “Well,” Hanrahan said. “That’s one mystery solved.”

“What did you do with the… with whatever Maggie threw up?” Ryan asked.

“Wrapped it in a bunch of toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet.” Edna saw the cops disappointed reaction. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, ma’am,” Syd said.

Ryan looked at Syd. “This happened last night by the way, about nine-thirty. A room service attendant opened the door to get the dog for Mrs. Kaye, but he never entered the room because there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

“Damn, that’s fifteen hours ago,” Syd said. “We could have figured out her next victim by now.”

Hanrahan’s cell phone rang. He answered, listened, said, “Thanks,” and snapped it shut. He looked at Ryan and Syd, “Ready to meet the Lady in Red?”

They had caught her three times on two cameras. The Lady in Red and Adam Devlin passed through the lobby crossing from the Windows Lounge toward the bank of elevators. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand, two flutes in the other. The Lady in Red had her left arm entwined in his and leaned against him as they walked. But there was no good view of her face from this angle. Adam was taller than the Lady in Red, and since they were walking side-by-side, he blocked her face.

“You think she did it on purpose?” Hanrahan asked. “Scoped out the cameras ahead of time and tucked behind him to hide her face?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, Chief,” Syd said. “She’s been one step ahead of us from the beginning.”

“There is one more shot from this angle,” the head of security said. They were in his office. Hanrahan, Ryan and Syd stood behind him looking at the monitor. The head of security fast-forwarded. “This is three hours and six minutes later.” The Lady in Red entered the left side of frame and walked out the front door. Her back was to camera the entire time.

“That’s no help,” Hanrahan said.

“Let’s see the other angle,” Ryan said. The head of security hit a few buttons and the scene shifted to a bank of elevators. Adam Devlin and the Lady in Red turned a corner and walked straight for the camera.

“Gotcha,” Hanrahan said.

The video was silent but you could see the Lady in Red’s mouth moving and Adam Devlin smiling. “Okay, freeze it there,” Ryan said.

The tape froze with a big clear shot of the Lady in Red and Adam Devlin.

“She’s pretty,” Ryan said.

“And diabolical,” Syd said. “Imagine, she’s walking arm-in-arm, flirting up a storm with a guy who she knows she’s going to kill and mutilate in just a few minutes.” Syd crossed to the screen, looked closely at Adam. “What did you do to her, you bastard?”

“You’re calling him a bastard?” Hanrahan asked. “She’s the nutbag rearranging their anatomy.”

“That’s right. She’s methodically killing certain handpicked men. She has planned this for a long, long time. And when we find the connection between these victims, I guarantee you we’re going find out that she,” Syd pointed at the frozen image of the Lady in Red, “was the first victim.”

Ryan looked at his partner. “She’s a murderer, Syd. No matter what they did to her, you can’t take the law into your own hands.”

“Of course not,” Syd said. “I’m just saying as bad as I want to catch her, I’m dying to find out why.”

“Well let’s start with catching her,” Hanrahan said. He turned to the head of security. “I’ll need a copy of that tape. Media Relations will make copies for all the news outlets. We should have her face on every TV in Southern California by dinner.”

“And we’ll talk to the widow,” Ryan said. “Maybe she’ll know what Zachary Stone, Colin Wood and Adam Devlin have in common.”

Anne sat across from Travis Taylor. The private detective was a good looking man, reminding Anne of a young Clint Eastwood. He had steel-gray hair and a trace of Texas in his gravelly speech. He dressed in a dark blue suit, probably a throwback to his FBI days, and smelled of Old Spice.

They sat in a quiet corner of the Beverly Hilton lobby bar. Anne had checked into the hotel, treating herself to a suite, but the room wasn’t ready yet. She still had to move out of the Santa Monica apartment and her office at Rogers, Middleton and Roberts, but two things took priority; getting ready for the California Lottery in the morning, and finding out about Syd Curtis.

“She’s a good cop,” Travis said. “She was only on the street for five years before getting bumped to detective. She had a solid rep as a uniform. She earned three commendations before actually winning a Medal of Valor last year.”

The Medal of Valor was the highest honor an LAPD officer could earn, not given out lightly and always involving bravery and heroism above and beyond the call of duty. “What did she do?” Anne asked.

Travis read from his notes, paraphrasing the police report. “A man started beating his pregnant wife in a grocery store in Sherman Oaks. One of the customers tried to stop him; the husband pulled a gun and shot the customer, killing him. Chaos erupted inside the store, panicked people running out the doors, employees fleeing out the back and one of them called 911.

“Officer Syd Curtis and her partner, Bruce Carroll, were the first to arrive at the scene. Witnesses told them that the man with the gun and his pregnant wife were still inside the store and he’d also taken a teenage girl hostage. The hysterical mother begged the officers to save her daughter.

“Officers Curtis and Carroll entered the store with weapons drawn and spread out trying to find the suspect. As Officer Curtis turned down an aisle, she found the husband holding his wife and the teenage girl at gunpoint. He immediately put the gun to the back of the teenage girl’s head and said if the police didn’t leave immediately, he was going to shoot the girl. The man was clearly unstable and Officer Curtis feared for the lives of the hostages.

“Then she spotted her partner moving up behind the suspect. But her partner was unable to risk apprehending the suspect because of the imminent threat of the suspect’s gun to the teenager’s head.