Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

“You think it’s him, don’t you?” Todd said. “You think he’s the one who’s been doing this to these women. And to me.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s more than possible, isn’t it? That’s why he’s in my video. He’s been stalking me. Why don’t I remember him?”

“He may be using drugs and hypnosis to change your memory,” Frankie said.

Todd spun around. His face was black. “Like you do.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “Like I do.”

He loomed over her, and for a moment, she was afraid of what he would do. She saw a man who was about to lose control, who would lash out at anyone in front of him. Then Todd spun away from her and charged toward her office door.

“Todd, where you are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said.

“How’s the girl?” Lieutenant Jess Salceda asked Frost.

She sucked on her cigarette. The two of them stood outside the police headquarters building in Mission Bay near the water. Giants fans swarmed the street, heading to an afternoon game at the waterfront stadium two blocks away. The parking lot across the street smelled of popcorn, hot dogs, and beer. Hip-hop music blared from portable speakers. The afternoon was cloudy and cold, with rain storms on the way, but that didn’t stop the tailgaters.

“She’s at the hospital,” Frost told her. “I’m heading over there to take her home. The docs found traces of barbiturates in her system.”

“Any sexual assault?” Jess asked.

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“What about the Malibu?” Frost asked her. “What’s the report on the car? Did we find any evidence?”

“Oh, yeah, lots,” Jess replied. “Prints, DNA. But I bet it all traces back to the car’s owner, not our guy.”

She leaned back against the building’s concrete wall as she smoked. She was short — at least six inches shorter than Frost — but tough and strong for her size-ten uniform. In her early forties, she wore her hair short, with dyed brown-and-gold streaks and bangs hanging down to her eyes. She had a slightly hooked nose and a round copper face that didn’t smile often. She was usually angry. Angry about crime. Angry about poverty. Angry about men who treated women like punching bags. And she wasn’t quiet about the things in the city that she didn’t like. Her mouth regularly got her in trouble with the captains and commanders, but the street cops and investigators all knew she was fearless, and they respected her blue blood. She’d been a cop since she was eighteen, just like her father had been a cop since he was eighteen.

“So what’s this guy doing?” Jess asked him. “What’s his plan?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said the song had no effect on the girl, right? Not like the others?”

Frost nodded. “Right. This guy took her and drugged her, but I can’t figure out his next move. Whatever he did to Lucy isn’t the same as the other women, and that’s what worries me. I’d like to keep a cop on her 24-7 for now.”

Jess eyed him from behind her spiky bangs. “Lucy?”

“Yeah.”

She knew him well enough to read him. “Do you have some kind of personal thing with her?”

Frost didn’t answer immediately. He watched the fans parading toward the stadium. “Not in the way you mean.”

Jess squinted at the sky, where darker clouds massed. “Stay objective, Frost.”

“Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen with her. It’s not that kind of relationship. At least not for me.”

“Well, I’m in no position to give you lectures about who to get involved with.”

He knew she was pissed at him, but it wasn’t just about the case.

Frost and Jess had a complicated relationship, and it had been that way since they met. Jess wasn’t anyone’s idea of drop-dead gorgeous, but she had heat, and Frost felt it. They’d known each other since before he was a cop. Jess Salceda had been the homicide inspector on Katie’s murder. She’d encouraged him to join the force because she saw something in how he looked at the world that she thought the police needed. When he did, she mentored him, sometimes ahead of older cops who didn’t like the special treatment he got. They thought there was something between them, and they weren’t entirely wrong.

Last spring, when Jess was splitting from her husband — a captain in special operations — she and Frost got drunk together and spent all night in bed in an airport motel. The next morning, they woke up to their mistake and swore off it, which lasted a month. Then they found themselves back at the same motel for another one-night stand.

Since then, they’d been sober with each other. Neither one of them wanted a relationship, but like alcoholics, they knew how good a drink could taste.

“I got a call from someone I was hoping I’d never have to talk to again,” Lieutenant Jess Salceda told Frost.

“Let me guess. Darren Newman.”

“Bingo,” Jess said.

“What’d Newman say?” Frost asked.

“He said you broke into his house, harassed him at gunpoint, and couldn’t take your eyes off his girlfriend’s tits.”

“That’s not totally inaccurate,” Frost admitted.

Jess snickered. “He wants me to keep you out of his face, or he’s going to sue the department.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so stay in his face,” Jess snapped. “Do you think he’s the one doing this? Do you think he’s the Night Bird?”

“I don’t know. The puzzle pieces fit, but we don’t have a shred of real evidence against him yet.”

“Yeah, he’s clever,” Jess said.

“Herb still thinks he killed Merrilyn Somers.”

Jess had half a cigarette left, but she crushed it under her boot. “Yeah, Herb and his crew were all over me about Newman from the get-go. They put me in touch with other women who’d been involved with him. Guy was a nightmare. Abuse, assault, stalking, harassment. He always skated thanks to his parents. But the stories these women told me? Wow. One girl stood him up on a date because her boss made her work late. She came home and found all of her tropical fish pinned to her bedroom wall with a nail gun. Nice, huh? I mean, we’re talking about a guy with zero soul. There’s nothing inside.”

“And yet he keeps hooking up with new girlfriends. I met one of them last night. She knows all about his past, but she doesn’t care.”

“What can I tell you, Frost? Biology’s a bitch. I get it. I spent hours with Newman, and I knew what kind of a psycho he was. Doesn’t mean I was immune to his sex appeal.”

Frost knew she was right, but he didn’t pretend to understand.

“What about the Somers murder?” he asked.

“That case really got to me,” Jess said, shaking her head. “Here’s this pretty young black girl from Reno. Religious. Choir singer. Engaged to her high school sweetheart. Smart as a whip, already lining up jobs after college. Every kid should be like her, you know? And then some bastard rapes her and kills her in her apartment. That shit makes me crazy.”

“I know.”

“Herb’s right,” Jess told him. “Newman did it. I know he did it. And you know what? I don’t think Merrilyn was his first.”

“There were others?”

“Yeah, I did some digging. When Newman was eighteen years old, living near Green Bay, a college girl was found stabbed in a local park. Case was never solved. Three years later, there was a murder in Boulder, while Newman was going to school there. The dead girl had a class with Newman the previous semester, but he was never on their radar. A local sex offender got drunk and hung himself, and the police found the girl’s panties in his house. That was as good as a confession, but if you ask me, Newman was already figuring out how to cover his tracks. He likes using fall guys.”