Peppermint Soul (Liza McNairy Mysteries Book 1) Page 6

  "How about when you took the case, Hank? Anything new surface?"

  "I wish I could say yes, Liza... but no. By that time no one remembered those girls. Any friends they had disappeared or died. The parents weren’t much help."

  "Like they were forgotten? Is that what you mean, Hank?"

  "No, Danners. But life goes on. Bad shit happens to good people all the time. That's what keeps you and me in business. Sometimes things just get old, you know?"

  "Remind me to never disappear in Los Angeles, okay, Hank?"

  "That isn’t fair. So far as I can tell, they followed all the leads right to the finish on this one, Liza. Everything came up a dead end. I knew those girls so I took this one to heart when I came into the case. The only real thing to go on was how someone saw a brown van pulling out of that area about the same time those girls disappeared but they got no plate... Christ, they didn’t even know for certain if the van was brown or just rusty. They ran a check on all the pedophiles on record... all of them alibied out. Vouched for, impeccably."

  "Can we get copies of the old case files, Hank?"

  "Marcy... get Ms. McNairy and Mr. Forthright copies of the case files on the Picany twins, please."

  "Yes sir, Detective Lupo. They'll be ready."

  2

  There was something bothering her about the whole conversation with Hank Lupo but goddamn it if the jitters didn’t have her in their grip now. Couldn’t think. Dammit. She should have made a note of the thought when it occurred to her. She knew better. Maybe it'd come back later. Sometimes it did. But sometimes it didn’t. The way he brushed up against her while handing her the files... copping a feel of those triple Ds, just like old times. Fucking perverts... she hated them all, even her father... especially her father... don’t go there, Liza... not now... not today.

  "He's hiding something, Liza."

  "Who? What... what are we talking about, Danners?"

  She hated that. What did he think... that she could read minds now too? If she told him once she told him a million times: specify. For Christ's sake... could the car in front of them go just a little fucking slower? Maybe they'd get home by sometime tomorrow afternoon. Jesus, they must be ninety years old, the whole carload of them. Those decrepit motherfuckers really ought to stay home where they belonged instead of clogging up the freeways. Didn’t they realize...

  "Your detective friend... he knows more than he's letting on."

  "Come on, Danners... this case has been ongoing for twenty years now. How can he tell us all about it all in one hour? That's why we have the case files."

  She was irritable. Her eyes hurt every time she blinked and that spot just above her ribcage on the right side of her back had started aching an hour ago. She tried adjusting her posture but nothing helped to ease that motherfucker except a little China white. Gall bladder, maybe? Kidney going out? Liver going bad? Hell, who knew. All the doctors wanted to do was start cutting and once they started... well, they didn’t want to stop. Could be she had stage four lung cancer eating her up from the inside and the only thing keeping the pain of the disease at bay was the candy she sucked down like water. She'd start worrying when she began coughing up blood. Until then, all she needed was a little bit of...

  "I'm telling you, Liza... something's not kosher."

  "Drop it, DanDan... you're just pissed because he came onto me and not to you."

  "Well fuck you too, Liza."

  Great. Now Danners was in one of his moods. So what. Let him be pissed. The man was nothing but a crybaby anyhow. Once he took a dislike to someone he never let it go. And Danners never liked Hank Lupo. Of course DanDan had a right not to cotton to cops... so far as he was concerned the entire Los Angeles Sheriff's Department conspired against him. The creepy thing about it... maybe he was right. She'd been one of them long enough to know how the system worked.

  The Picany mother bothered her. The woman kept those girls' room exactly like it was twenty years ago. Who the fuck did that? Made things easier, though. She was obviously suffering acute post traumatic stress from the incident but didn’t anyone talk to her? Didn’t they tell her to move on? And the father... drunk at ten o'clock in the morning. Still, she was one to talk, walking into their living room as high as Fred Flintstone after he fucked Betty Rubble with Wilma watching. Yaba daba doo!

  They were useless, the pair of them. Mom and dad. But something in that twisted and crazy bedroom caught her eye. Old Polaroid snapshots of the twins posing with a boy... provocatively... too much skin showing... way too much, especially for girls that age. And the look on that boy's face... obscene, nearly. She'd found the photos in the false bottom of a suitcase stashed in the closet, as if someone hid it, hid them. The cops have been all over that room, said the father, slurring his words. They never found nothing. Nothing. Shaking his head now... eyes brimming, ready to start sobbing. My girls were good. They never did nothing to nobody.

  You don't mind of we look again, do you, Mr. Picany? We won't disturb anything. The mother all aflutter... hands dancing like demented butterflies, eyes darting about the room... searching, making an inventory of things. We won't be long, Mrs. Picany... we'll just have a quick look around. Why don’t you and Mr. Picany have some lunch while we're up there? Give us a few minutes alone.

  Liza'd worked security at LAX right after she'd quit the force. Not long. She couldn’t stomach the whiners coming through the gate. The why me's. The entitled ones. But she learned enough to know a false bottom from true when she saw one. This particular bottom was clever enough to fool your ordinary cop, but not quick enough to trick a pro like her. She'd pocketed the pictures and now held out the photo for Danners to see. Maybe it'd help take her mind off her little problem that was rapidly escalating into a big one.

  "We need to find out more about who this kid is, Danners."

  "Where'd you find that picture, Liza?"

  "Hey, Danners... you're the fucking psychic. You tell me."

  "Come on, Lizzi... don’t do that. Not to me."

  He was right. She was just picking a fight for no reason other than her high wearing off. Get a grip, Liza. It ain't DanDan's fault that you shot up this morning and now you're regretting it. You knew better. Why don’t you just kick? Be a normal fucking person who drinks coffee in the morning and takes sleeping pills at night.

  "I'm sorry, sweetie. You know I love you. It's just this case is starting to get to me and we've only begun working it."

  "Is it because they're twins, Liza?"

  "No... yeah... maybe... I don’t know, DanDan. It's that room... you know, everything just like it was when those girls disappeared. Talk about stepping back in time... and to the worst possible moment. How can those people live like that?"

  "It does make our job a little easier though, sweetie."

  You're right but you're wrong. You didn’t have to go through it, DanDan. With a crazy mother who kept trying to turn you into the other one... the good twin, the one who everyone loved and who if not for that fire would have grown up to become that special someone, not a damaged beyond repair junkie who's womb is so polluted she can't even have kids.

  "Stay with me tonight, DanDan?"

  "You know I will, Liza."

  "Good... I need you, you know. I found the pictures

  3

  "In the false bottom of a suitcase, Danners."

  "But the cops'd been all over that room, Liza."

  "If they really knew how to do their jobs, no one would need us. Now would they, honeybunch."

  She'd been one of them long enough that she knew the routine by heart. The keep quiet and put in your time... the custom of watching out for other cops' backs no matter what went down... the distain for the common public. She learned fast. Had a great teacher in Hank Lupo. Even though they went through the academy together, Hank seemed to have a leg up on all the other rookies, her included. But he watched out for them. Had her back when she needed it too.

  She owed the man. But she never wanted to be
like him. He had too many secrets. Whatever he was into, it was deep. She always had the feeling that if she'd curried his favor by allowing him a fuck or two that she might've been included in some of his undisclosed and furtive rendezvous too. Hell, she might've even made partner. But that shit scared her more than a little... and that coming from a girl who shot unknown substances into her body on a daily basis and had for years.

  Did Hank Lupo know more about the disappearance of the Picany twins than he was letting on? Sure he did. But she wasn’t going there. Not now. Not ever. They kept each others' secrets. That's how it worked. He had his. She had hers.

  "How many pictures did you find, Liza?"

  "Six... they're all of the twins in various stages of undress. I have a feeling Allen Picany might not be aware of what his little sweethearts were up to... he seemed to be convinced they were pristine virgins. From the looks of these photographs, they were anything but."

  "Let me see, Liza."

  "Drive, pervert man. Get me home and I'll show them to you then."

  "At least let me hold one."

  "Here you go, poky slow. Maybe if you pull over and stop we'll get home faster, ya'think?"

  Sometimes she wondered about Danners and his grand quest toward the land of queerdom. Was it all a put on? A game he played because gay was the only one he knew? Maybe he really thought he liked men. But if so, why did he look at her the way he did? She knew that stare. She'd gotten it from a million other men during her life and every one of them wanted something from her. The thing was, Danners Forthright was the first one she'd willingly give it up to, and he acted like she was a leper, or worse, a woman.

  Whoever had taken the pictures of the twins was using them for sport, the way she'd once been exploited. The poses were planned. Like the photographer had studied the art formally, or at least had gained a great deal of expertise while standing behind a camera. Danners seemed to either read her mind or get one of his visions that he sometimes got when he put his hand on certain objects once belonging to the people for whom they were searching.

  "He told them how to stand... what parts of their bodies to expose... he promised them things."

  "Who, sweetie?"

  "The boy who took the pictures of those girls, Liza. He's still alive. I feel it. He treasured these pictures... the twins. We need to find out who he is... I've a feeling he might be our man of the hour."

  Chapter 9—Johm

  (And the Carving Knife)

  1

  He'd been thinking hard about retiring. Maybe not all together. Just cut back some... work only four days a week instead of seven, take a couple weeks vacation every year—maybe to the Caribbean. Take August off each year. He'd heard the government was loosening things up... making it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba now. He'd like to get in on that shit before all the tourists hit the place and changed it into something else. Hell, he might even like it there and stay. On an island like that, still in the 50s, he could work his magic undeterred. No one knew him there. No shadows trailing him from the past.

  Sometimes he felt like giving up. Really quitting. Maybe that's why he continued to send the letters even when he knew they'd eventually end up tracking his perverted ass down. Then again, he'd been teasing them for years. He wondered sometimes if those looking for him could even find their own ass if they had both hands on it. Plus it was all part of the fun... the thrilling possibility that he could actually be caught out for the sicko he'd become... hell, the depraved lunatic he'd always been.

  "Did you get the paper?"

  He saw the story written in her down turned peepers—how she'd forgotten. Christ... she knew how much he enjoyed having the newspaper—the New York Times, of course—with his coffee and a little bud in the morning. I'm sorry, Tommy, she said, voice quivering in unison with her chin the way it did when she was either scared shitless or ready to get off despite herself. The beauty of it was how cowed she'd become, that he could trust her to do things like that all by herself—go to the grocery, stop by the tailor—without him worrying about her running on him. She knew.

  Course he'd had her for the better part of five years now. Jesus, what a spitfire she used to be. Tried biting him once. Slapping all her teeth loose on the left side had cured her of that crap. Now he wondered—maybe she needed a refresher. What if she'd been distracted by something on her way to the grocery this morning? Memories had a way of creeping in at the most inopportune of times. Things like that bothered him way more than they should.

  "I'm sorry, baby. Let me go back and get it for you now, Tommy."

  "Shut up."

  God, he hated it when she played the servile bitch, that smarmy look creasing the edges of her eyes and pulling down the corners of her mouth. What's more, she knew it and yet donned the role simply to rile him. If he told her once, he told her a million times... his name wasn’t Tommy. It was Thomas, or Mr. Johm. Why did life have to be so difficult? It was as if she enjoyed being punished, thrilled in pushing him to his humanly limits, and reveled in the swift and severe judgments that invariably ensued following her infantile actions.

  She damned sure shouldn’t need to be told twice. Lately he'd been getting more into using YouTube to spread his special brand of perversion. By using an encrypted VPN tunnel and the TOR browser he made it impossible for the authorities to detect his whereabouts. He'd grown quite a following over the past six months. People liked that shit, especially how he never used anesthetic on his patients. The screams didn’t faze him. He'd had the contractor install soundproofing on the secret room, paid extra for it.

  "Get undressed and go to your room."

  She knew what was coming next... had to. Every time she fucked up, he'd set her right. Even had a place all decked out just for that purpose. He called it her cell. Had it built by some kid who did jobs on the side like that, someone who knew enough to keep his trap shut when it came to things that weren’t his business. No more than a good-sized closet, the room didn’t exist, not in real time and space anyway.

  Sometimes he removed parts of them—from the inside. People paid to watch that shit, perverted fucks that they were. Things they could live without, mostly. But not always. He'd have made a fine surgeon. Even now, when the man he idolized had long ago given up the trade on account of the tremors old age brought along with its death grip, his nerves were steady as glass, his moves practiced and quick. Hardly any blood. Had it all memorized, the arteries, the veins, the sweet spots.

  Of course he had a fine mentor. The man used to allow him to come right into the operating room, like any other doctor. No one knew the difference. Having a little something on the good man made things easier. But one hand washes another. That's the way it worked. Always had.

  Long ago he'd read about part of the brain that had to do with volition... with the act of deciding for oneself. It'd turned into a burgeoning business back at the beginning of the 20th century, before all the fuss. The do-gooders crying about it. Some doctors had perfected the technique to such precision they could use ice picks jammed right through the eye sockets to perform the surgery. He didn’t profess to possess that grand knowledge... instead, he figured to have to open her head up to see just where to cut, like he'd done before. He liked the drilling part best. He used a hole-saw made for cutting metal. Found out that one made for wood didn’t do it. Bone was too dense. Had to exert just enough pressure to cut through the skull but not so much as to puncture the membrane encasing the brain. He'd learned the hard way about that, or rather his patient did.

  "Lay down."

  In the beginning he used straps to hold her arms and legs in place. Now, he trusted her to remain still. It was a game they played. The less she fidgeted, the less likely it was that he'd miss his mark... hit a nerve or an artery, in which case that which started as a minor procedure turned into an epic battle against the frailties of the flesh. Sometimes he wished she'd be more resistant to his explorations. It'd make the process more thrilling. But he supposed like
him she'd grown used to his methods. Maybe she even loved him for it. At least he liked to think so.

  There'd been others before her and there'd be more after she expired. Still, he liked to believe a sort of bond had formed between them... that she not only willingly submitted to his vulgarities but took the same pleasures in them as he did. Sometimes he wondered about her name. She must have had one. Didn’t anyone miss her? She seemed like a forlorn and forgotten doll someone tossed carelessly into the trash pile where she lay until he came along and rescued her. Yeah. That's what he'd done, alright. Picked her up, dusted her off, and brought her home.

  "Now, hold completely still. I'm going to be working inside your brain today. We don't want any mishaps, now do we?"

  He loved that look of terror blossoming in her eyes as he began shaving the hair from each of her temples, dabbing the skin with iodine, preparing the surface of his masterpiece. It brought back memories... the surfer twins... sure, they were his first in a demented sort of way. Whatever happened to them? He never could decide which one was the prettier and so he'd spent a year going back and forth. Finally, he had to have them both. Of course he couldn’t keep them... things didn’t work that way, not when he had the Captain to deal with.

  The Captain. That man ruled. He had the connections and the ambitions to be the king of the world. As long as you did your job, the Captain didn’t care what liberties you took with the merchandise. In fact, he condoned experimentation as long as you kept the bodies alive. Fuck up and kill them and there'd be hell to pay. He'd learned that early on... a lesson he'd never forgotten.

  He'd met the Captain twenty some years ago when he was still known as the Baker boy, the troublemaker with a souped up hot rod and a smile that killed. Literally. Unlike most people the Captain noticed his potential right off. Introduced him to a whole new way of life... to people the Baker boy never would have met on his own. Influential men who knew exactly what they wanted in life and how to go about getting it. Yeah, that Baker boy... he had his eccentricities but he got things done. The Captain appreciated people like that and in turn he loved the Captain like no other.