Erica Spindler - Killer Takes All

“What,” Stacy asked, “could you possibly have in there that you’ll need in the next forty-eight hours?”

“My essentials,” the woman answered breezily, smiling at the skycap. The man, ignoring several people in line in front of them, asked if he could help her.

Amazingly, no one complained.

Not so amazingly, the skycap totally ignored Stacy, leaving her to schlep her own bag.

As they proceeded to the gate, her cell phone rang. Stacy saw from the display that it was Malone.

“You going to answer that?” Billie asked.

Was she? If she told him what she was up to, he could skewer her meeting with Chief Battard, Billie or no Billie. All he had to do was claim she was interfering with an active investigation, and the file the chief had offered would be sealed shut.

Besides, this was the first time she had heard from Spencer since Saturday. Clearly, he had cut her out. She was cutting him out, as well.

She smiled to herself. “Nope,” she said, hitting the device’s power button.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

10:25 a.m.

“You filed your taxes yet, Slick?” Tony said as they slammed the car doors and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Crime-scene tape stretched across the front of the ironwork-laced French Quarter apartment building. Located just down the block from two of New Orleans’ most popular gay bars, Oz and the Bourbon Pub and Parade, clusters of men stood around the scene, some crying, some comforting and others stony-faced with fury or shock.

“Nope. Got a month still. I like to wait to the last minute. It’s an act of defiance,” Spencer answered.

“Death and taxes, man. Can’t get around ’em.”

Death would be the reason for this particular tête-à-tête.

Double homicide. Called in by a friend who discovered the bodies.

That would be him, Spencer thought as he caught sight of a man huddled on a bench in the building’s lush courtyard.

Spencer and Tony crossed to the first officer and signed in. The kid looked a bit green.

The two detectives exchanged glances. Not a good sign.

“What’ve we got?”

“Two males.” His voice shook slightly. “One black. One Hispanic. In the bathroom. Been dead awhile.”

“Great,” Tony muttered, digging a bottle of Vicks from his jacket pocket. “Another stinker.”

“How long?” Spencer asked. “Your best guess.”

“A couple of days. But I’m no pathologist.”

“Names?”

“August Wright and Roberto Zapeda. Interior designers. Nobody had seen them for a couple of days, their friend over there was concerned. Came to check on them.”

Spencer scanned the sign-in. Techs hadn’t made it yet; neither had the coroner’s office.

“Going up,” he said, then motioned toward the bench and the two men. “Keep your eyes on our friends there. We’ll be back to question them.”

The kid nodded. “Will do.”

They made their way to the second-floor apartment. Another officer stood outside the door. Guy named Logan. Spent a lot of time at Shannon’s.

Spencer nodded at him as they passed. He looked hungover. No surprises there.

Just beyond the apartment, Tony handed Spencer the open jar of Vicks. Spencer smeared some under his nose and handed it back.

They stepped into the apartment. The smell rushed over Spencer in a stomach-churning wave. He forced himself to breathe deeply through his nose and counted to ten, then twenty. Between the Vicks and his fatiguing olfactory glands, the smell became tolerable.

The front room appeared undisturbed. Elegantly appointed with a combination of new and antique pieces, richly patterned art and stunning floral arrangements.

“Classy,” Tony said, moving his gaze over the room. “Those gay boys got the gift, you know?”

Spencer angled him a glance. “They were interior designers, Pasta Man. What did you expect?”

“Ever see that show? Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? ” Spencer indicated he hadn’t. “They take a regular guy like me and transform him into a GQ dude. It’s something.”

“A guy like you?”

The older man arched his eyebrows, indignant. “You don’t think they could spiff me up?”

“I think they’d take one look at you and kill themselves.”

Before his partner could comment, the techs arrived. “Hey,” Tony called. “You guys ever see that Queer Eye show?”

“Sure,” Frank, the photographer, answered. “Hasn’t everybody?”

“Junior here says they’d take one look at me and kill themselves. Think that’s true?”

“Pretty much,” one of the other guys answered, smirking. “If I was your wife, I’d kill myself.”

“We’re burning daylight, boys,” Spencer interrupted. “Do you mind?”

They all turned their attention to the scene, a few of them grumbling. Not a magazine or bric-a-brac out of place. He always found it bizarre that there could be such calm only feet from horrendous violence.

And horrendous it was, he discovered moments later. The victims had been tied together and herded into the bathroom. Obviously instructed, or enticed, to climb into the claw-footed tub and kneel.

There, they had been killed.

But that wasn’t the part that was out of the ordinary. It was the blood.

Everywhere. The walls, the fixtures. The floor.

As if it had been painted on, with a house paintbrush. Or a roller.

“Holy shit,” Tony muttered.

“At least.” Spencer made his way to the tub, conscious of the sound his rubber-soled shoes made on the blood-streaked floor. Cursing any evidence that might be destroyed, but acknowledging no other option.

The victims faced each other, arms tied behind their backs. They appeared to have been in their thirties. In good shape. One wore only his skivvies, the other drawstring pajama bottoms.

They had both been shot in the back.

He frowned. But it didn’t appear either had put up a struggle. Why?

“What’re you thinking, Slick?”

He glanced at his partner. “Wondering why they didn’t put up a fight.”

“Probably thought not struggling would save their lives.”

Spencer nodded. “Guy had a gun. Herded them in here. Probably thought they were being robbed.”

“Why not shoot them out front? Why this elaborate stage?”

“Wanted the blood.” Spencer pointed to the tub. The killer had put the stopper in, to catch the blood. Some pooled in the bottom of the tub. “Part of a ritual maybe?”

“Detectives?”

They turned. Frank stood in the bathroom doorway. “Miss something?”

A plastic bag had been taped to the back of the door. Spencer looked at Tony. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That this is a bit too familiar?”

“Uh-huh.” Spencer fitted on his gloves, crossed to the door. “Got your shot?” When the photographer nodded, Spencer carefully peeled the bag off.

With a sense of déjà vu, he removed the note inside. It read simply: The roses are red now.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Monterey Coast, California

3:15 p.m.

Billie hadn’t lied; after they’d gotten out of the city, the drive had been lovely. When they turned off Carmel Way and onto the famous Seventeen Mile Drive, Stacy caught her breath. The curving road, densely forested on both sides, wound its way through the breathtakingly beautiful hilly terrain. That stretch proved short-lived, transforming into a sinuous roadway, lined on both sides by fabulous estates and glimpses of the Pacific Ocean.

Billie’s friend had booked them into the Lodge at Pebble Beach-the Pebble Beach of golf fame-which even Stacy had heard of, though she’d never played golf. Excluding the goofy variety, of course. She’d been pretty damn good at that, championship material, if she said so herself.