Stuart Woods - Hothouse Orchid

“Would the operator have seen Bruno there?”

“Probably not; she’s in her own space, with the door closed. She has to stay by the switchboard in case of a nine-one-one call, and she has her own john back there.”

“What does Bruno drive?”

“An unmarked Crown Vic cruiser, dark blue. I noticed when I left last night that the keys were in it. I suppose you could make a case that somebody took the car and returned it later, but that’s kind of far-fetched, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You need me out there?”

“No, I’ll ask the DIC, Ed Rankin, to fax you a copy of his report. The ME just left; you can get his report later today, probably. I’ll talk to you later, Jimmy.” Lauren closed her phone and noticed that Hurd Wallace was standing a few yards away, looking down. She walked over to him. “Got something?”

“Maybe we got lucky,” Hurd said, pointing down. “There was some rain last evening, and there’s a bare spot in the grass right here. Look at that tire print.”

Lauren looked down. “Nice and clear,” she said, “and it looks like there’s a cut in the tire.” She moved along a few feet. “Here it is again, from when the tire turned. It’s a right tire.”

“Let’s get a cast of that track,” Hurd said.

Teddy was working in the kitchen when the chime went off, signaling a car entering the driveway. That would be Lauren, he guessed, but he still went to the door and looked outside to be sure. She was spending more and more time at his house; some of her clothes were in his closet and chest of drawers. He liked that.

Lauren came in the door and gave him a wet kiss. “Whatever that is smells good,” she said.

“It’s only meat loaf.”

“My favorite!”

“Then you came to the right place.”

“I know I did.”

“How was your day?”

“Another murder,” she said. “Out at the fairgrounds, west of town. A young woman who worked as a ticket seller at the Indian River Mall cineplex.”

“Any new clues?”

“We may have gotten a break,” she said. “We know that Bruno said he was working all night at the police station, and there was nobody there who could give him an alibi. We also found a tire track with a cut in the tread.”

“Is that tire on Bruno’s car?”

“We don’t know,” she said. “Hurd and I drove past his house, and his car was parked in the driveway, so we had a look at the tires. We couldn’t see a cut, but it could have been on the ground, and we couldn’t move the car without a warrant. Of course, we don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant.”

“And while you’re waiting for enough evidence, he could kill a few more women.”

“Please don’t say that,” she said. “That’s my worst nightmare.”

Teddy fixed them a drink and handed her one. She took a stool at the kitchen counter. “I’m getting tired of looking at corpses,” Lauren said. “This one was posed in the driver’s seat, kneeling.”

“I think I get that picture,” Teddy said. “No more details, please.”

“I don’t want details myself,” she replied, “but details are my job.”

“Details were always what made my work fun,” Teddy said, then he realized he was talking about his career at the CIA and stopped talking.

“Go on.”

“I was just going to say that when you’re inventing gadgets, everything is in the details.” He held up a plastic frame with a blade in it. “Like this potato slicer,” he said. “It would have cost too much to make the blade adjustable, so I had to cook a lot of potatoes to get the slicing thickness just right.”

“A crime scene is nothing but details,” Lauren said. “I just can’t imagine how murders got solved fifty years ago before gunshot residue and knife blade matching and DNA came along.”

“Isn’t that when the cops just beat confessions out of the suspect?”

“Wash your mouth out with soap,” she said. “Well, maybe, but we don’t do that.”

“But the Supreme Court says you can lie about evidence to the suspect, in order to get a confession.”

“That’s not twisting science,” she said, “it’s using human nature against him. If the guy is already feeling guilty and he thinks you’ve got him, likely as not he’ll spill the beans with a video camera running.”

“I heartily approve of that technique,” Teddy said. “I don’t know how any murderer can think he’ll get away with it these days, what with all the science involved, all the ways he can get caught.”

“Somebody like Bruno,” Lauren said, “who has police training, has an advantage. He knows what we’ll look for, and he works at not leaving any evidence. He uses condoms, so that he won’t leave his DNA; he wears latex gloves…”

“I get the picture,” Teddy said. “But I’ll bet that if he has a cut tire, he doesn’t know it.”

“We didn’t get tire tracks at any of the other scenes,” Lauren said, “just this one.”

“Maybe he cut his tire since the last murder, ran over something sharp.”

“Maybe.” She took out the phone. “Excuse me a minute. I just thought of something.” She selected a number from her phone’s address book.

“Hello?”

“Jimmy, it’s Lauren Cade.”

“Hey, Lauren.”

“There’s something you could do that would be a big help,” she said.

“Sure, anything I can do.”

“Can you check the right tires on Bruno’s cruiser for cuts?”

“What are you looking for?”

“A cut across the tread. I checked his car at his house today but couldn’t see anything; it might have been parked with the cut on the ground.”

“I get you,” he said. “Sure, I’ll check the car every chance I get. You’re sure it’s on the right side?”

“I think so. You can check all four.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.” She hung up.

“That was Detective Weathers?” Teddy asked.

“Yes. He’s going to check Bruno’s tires for me.”

“And if you find a cut, you can get a warrant?”

“Maybe. Then, if we can match the cut in the tread to the cast we took, we’ll have some material evidence.”

“I’ll be the first to congratulate you,” Teddy said, slicing and serving the meat loaf before adding mashed potatoes and beans to the plates. Then he put them on the table, and they sat down to eat.

“I fantasize about searching Bruno’s house and finding the panties,” she said.

“What panties?”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you,” Lauren said. “He keeps his victim’s panties-at least, we’ve never found any at the crime scenes.”

Lauren Cade was at her desk the following morning when her phone rang. “Detective Cade,” she said.

“Lauren, it’s Jimmy Weathers.”

“Hey, Jimmy.”

“I checked Bruno’s tires this morning, and there’s a cut on the right front one. It’s deep, wedge-shaped and crosses about three-quarters of the tread.”

“Jimmy, I love you,” Lauren nearly shouted. “Tell me you didn’t manipulate the car in any way.”

“I didn’t touch it. The wheels were sharply turned to the left, and the cut was visible to any passerby. You shouldn’t have any trouble with the warrant.”

“Thank you, Jimmy! I’ve got to go see Hurd now.” She hung up and hurried down the hall to Hurd Wallace’s office, smiling.

“What?” Hurd said when he saw her face.

“Jimmy Weathers found a cut on the right front tire of Bruno’s car. He described it, and it sounds identical to the one we’ve got the cast of.”

“That’s great news,” Hurd said, picking up the phone and buzzing his secretary, Shirley Medved. “Shirley, call Judge Landry and get me an immediate appointment. Tell him it’s for a search warrant in an important case.” He hung up. “Here’s how we handle this,” he said to Lauren. “We tow the car to a garage of our choice, and we go over the whole thing with a fine-toothed comb. The DA is going to want more than the tire cut to ask for an indictment.”