The Killing Tide, page 11
There were murmured hellos all around. Then the three officers of the law looked at one another. Who took precedence? It was her and Stuart’s case, but this was Rebstock’s turf. To his credit, the homicide detective gave Alexa a little gesture indicating she should take the lead.
Normally she liked to speak to those who knew a victim separately, but since they worked together and had obviously been talking before the officers had entered, she didn’t see any point.
“Do either of you know of any threats against Mr. Billings?”
The young paralegal shook her head. Geraldine, the secretary, spoke up.
“There was one man he put away a few years ago—before your time, Hannah—who swore he’d kill him if he ever got out.”
Rebstock pulled out a pen and notepad. “What was his name?”
“Donald Paulson. He went in for assault and battery. A violent, vulgar man. That was quite some time ago and I would not be surprised if he was out by now.”
Alexa turned to Stuart. “I don’t remember that name from our list.”
“Neither do I,” the FBI man said.
Great, as if the list isn’t long enough.
“Anyone else?” Alexa asked.
“There was Armando Lopez. He threatened Mr. Billings for when Mr. Billings got him convicted for drug offenses. That was just two years ago, though, so he might not be out.”
Hannah spoke up. “Oh, and there was that guy from Los Cuatro Milpas.”
Alexa perked up. That was a Hispanic gang in Phoenix’s rough and poor East side.
“Oh yes,” Geraldine said. “He was put away for a stabbing.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“What was his name?” Alexa asked.
“Fernando something,” Hannah something. She looked to Geraldine, who put her hand to her chin, trying to remember.
“Fernando Mendoza?” Rebstock asked.
“That’s it!” the two women said together.
The homicide cop shook his head. “Can’t be him. He was the victim of his own stabbing six months ago. He’s dead.”
“Can you think of anyone else?” Alexa asked, dreading even more additions to the list.
The two women looked at each other.
“Not anyone else that he convicted.”
Odd turn of phrase. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well … ” Hannah blushed, looked at the older woman, who nodded. “Well, he kind of harassed women a lot.” She went on quickly. “He didn’t touch me or anything like that, but he was always dropping hints, like he’d say he knew of a great Japanese restaurant or that he got tickets to the Phoenix Suns. He never directly asked me out on a date, but that’s what he was doing. And he always stared at my chest. Kind of creepy. I started wearing loose sweaters to make him stop. Geraldine had to turn up the air conditioning just so I wouldn’t be too hot.”
“Do you know if he harassed anyone else?” Alexa asked.
Geraldine answered. “Mr. Billings went through three assistants in my time with him, all young graduates and all pretty. He made passes at all of them. I don’t think he ever did anything forceful, but it was unpleasant enough that I know at least two of them left because of it. They told me.”
“Any angry boyfriends?”
“I suppose so. None made any threats.”
Hannah spoke up. “Well, I hate to say this, but my boyfriend said if Mr. Billings ever touched me he’d break both his arms.”
“Did he have problems with other women, such as outside of work?” Alexa asked.
Both women shrugged.
“Outside of work, I didn’t go near him,” Hannah said.
It didn’t matter if they didn’t know. Alexa could guess. A guy who would harass people in the workplace would be twice as bad with people outside of it.
“Can you think of anyone else who might want to harm Kurt Billings?”
The two women said no.
Detective Rebstock inclined his head to indicate they should step out for a minute. Back in the hallway he said, “I spoke with the bartender in the Executive Lounge, and he told me Billings was quite the drinker. Was there regularly, bragging to everyone who’d listen about his record as a state prosecutor. A lot of people didn’t like him. No fights, though.”
Stuart spoke up. “With the booze and the coke, I wonder how good that record was.”
“Spotty,” Rebstock said. “He’s won some and lost some. He hasn’t screwed up too much to lose his job, but his reputation as a prosecutor is not the best. In fact, it’s been declining.”
“Due to increased substance abuse?” Alexa asked.
“That’s my guess,” the detective said.
Stuart shook his head. “Great. So this guy might have had enemies outside of work,” Stuart said. “Angry boyfriends. Rivals who hated him. Maybe a drug connection gone bad. The list could go on and on.”
“True enough,” Alexa said, “but the other two victims don’t seem to have that problem. I’m thinking it’s still related to some old case. Now that we have three victims, we should be able to narrow down the overlap between them easily.”
Stuart thought for a moment. When he did that, his heavy brow crinkled and he got a bit of a pained look on his face. If Alexa hadn’t known him better, she would have thought he looked a bit slow. He was anything but.
“You know, maybe we need to expand our search rather than narrow it down,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“What if it isn’t an old case? What if it’s a pending case? Or one that is currently in progress? And not necessarily the defendant, but a friend or relation of the defendant.”
Alexa thought for a moment. Yes, that could very well be.
Her heart sunk. Yeah, that was certainly a possibility, and that meant they had even more work ahead of them.
The killer seemed further away than ever.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Down at the station, Alexa watched as Rebstock showed her and Stuart the security camera footage.
“The cameras are all high up on the buildings,” the homicide detective said, fiddling with a desktop computer. “So they’re all long shots. The killer took care not to come close to any ATMs or doorway cams.”
Scoped out the scene even for this outdoor attack, Alexa thought. This guy knows what he’s doing.
The video came on. It showed the parking lot in black and white, Billings’s vehicle parked almost in the center, with only a few other cars scattered throughout the lot.
The state prosecutor came into view, weaving across the lot, obviously drunk.
After a moment, another figure came into view. It looked like a man, but it was hard to tell because the figure wore a hooded sweatshirt, along with sweatpants, sneakers, and carried a large gym bag. A casual viewer would assume he was coming back from a late-night gym session.
Alexa guessed the height at about five-eight, although it was hard to tell given the angle and distance. A bit stocky. Walked in that ponderous way stocky men do. The figure followed about ten yards behind Billings.
“Look how he keeps directly behind the victim,” Stuart said. “In Iraq, locals psyching themselves up for a suicide stabbing would try doing that to us.”
“Suicide stabbing?” Alexa asked.
“Not everyone had access to a suicide belt. You had to have connections to the insurgency or one of the Islamist militias to get that. So some people would decide to do it themselves. Tuck a butcher knife under their shirt, follow right behind us, and attack if we weren’t paying enough attention. They knew they’d get killed, no way you can take out an entire squad that way, but they hoped to kill or maim at least one of us. Hard to stop a man who wasn’t afraid to die.”
Alexa shuddered. The things this man had seen. It put her own suffering in perspective. While she had to deal with the worst of humanity on a day-to-day basis, she got to go home to a loving kid and a pair of horses. What did he get to go home to? A barracks full of homesick young men and women who got rockets launched at them in their sleep.
She set that thought aside and studied the footage. The killer, just as Stuart had noted, walked directly behind and about ten yards distant from Billings, who was too drunk to notice him. Many sober men would probably not have noticed him either. A woman would have, but women are more attentive when walking alone at night.
Billings got in the car and closed the door. The killer increased his pace, then slowed, coming up on the back of the car.
Why not rush for the door? Didn’t he worry Billings might lock it?
The killer stopped for a moment, then looked around. The deep hood kept his or her features in shadow.
“I checked every camera. No angle gives a view of the face,” the homicide detective grumbled.
“Why is he waiting?” Stuart asked. “I don’t see anyone passing by.”
“Could he know Billings is doing lines?” Alexa suggested. “Maybe he wants to catch him in the act.”
“How would he know?” Rebstock asked.
Alexa shrugged. She had no answer to that. His two coworkers didn’t seem to know, and considering all the negative things they said about him, you’d think they’d be forthcoming with that information.
Unless they were too intimidated by the presence of three officers. It’s one thing to mention sexual harassment, quite another to admit someone was using illegal drugs and you never called the cops.
The killer unzipped the top of his duffle bag and in a single fluid motion drew a large knife, dropped the bag, strode the remaining two steps to the car door, and flung it open.
He or she reached inside and looked like he hit Billings.
That must be the blow to the back of the head.
There was a brief glimpse of Billings’s legs as he drew back along the front seats, then the killer bent into the vehicle. They could see the knife hand stabbing and stabbing with quick efficiency.
Alexa’s blood ran cold. There was rage there, but also calculation. This was no maniac who had snapped. This person knew exactly what they were doing and went about it with purpose and precision.
A bit of blood spurted out of the car and onto the pavement.
After a few moments, the killer withdrew, gave a quick look around, and closed the car door. As he stepped away from the vehicle, he trod on the puddle of blood. The killer noticed immediately, and wiped the stained shoe repeatedly, purposely smearing the footprint.
“Just like Annette said he would,” Stuart whispered. “What a woman.”
Rebstock chuckled. “She’s roped another one, eh?”
“Quiet, guys,” Alexa muttered.
The killer moved over to the gym bag, put the knife inside, then shucked off the sweatpants and hoodie. Underneath were a dark pair of track pants and a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt. He was careful to keep that hood up as he removed the outer one.
He, because he made one little slip. As he pulled the hoodie over his head, the second one pulled up to reveal a slight belly and hair below the navel.
“We got ourselves a guy,” Rebstock said just as Alexa was about to point out the same thing.
The killer put the bloody clothes into the gym bag, making the exact same foot movements Annette Guevara had said he had. This didn’t surprise Alexa in the least. She had worked with the CSI expert before.
The killer then zipped up the bag and strolled with remarkable calm out of the parking lot and down the street. Rebstock turned off the video.
“Another camera picks him up when he goes around the corner of 6th Street. He goes all the way to Main and turns left before we lost him. Never breaks stride or speeds up. Cool as a cucumber.”
“Controlled rage,” Alexa murmured.
“Any idea why he didn’t go after Billings in his residence like with the other two judges?” Stuart asked.
“We checked his home,” the homicide detective said. “He has a penthouse in an exclusive apartment building. Security guard at the front desk twenty-four seven plus security cameras. We’re going through the camera footage to try and find some images of our man casing the place. I don’t hold out much hope. Our guy is too careful. He probably took one look at the building from down the street and realized it was too risky.”
“What about video footage around his workplace?” Alexa asked. “The killer must have watched him for a while to get his routine.”
“We’re working on that too. In the meantime, we don’t have much else.”
Alexa looked at her partner. “Looks like we need to sit down and start trawling through the cases again. I like your suggestion about current and scheduled cases. Why don’t you do those and I’ll keep on the older ones?”
“Will do,” Stuart said, rising. “I sure hope we find something quick. I got a feeling this guy isn’t done.”
* * *
Stuart Barrett had no problem keeping focus as he went through the details of case after case. A state prosecutor had a heavy workload, and he had to check every case, even the ones where the suspect was a woman. Just because the perp was a guy didn’t mean a woman wasn’t behind it. Several male murderers in recent years had turned out to be working for girlfriends or even mothers.
The focus he had learned from his time in Iraq. Over there, you had to be switched on at all times. What were those guys doing standing at the corner? Had that market cart piled high with vegetables been left alone too long? Is anyone appearing at any window within sight?
He could maintain that sort of attention for hours, although by the end of the day he would always be exhausted.
No time for exhaustion now. They had a killer to catch.
He did have one little distraction, though. That lovely, slim CSI investigator. Wow. Beauty, sass, and genius all rolled into one. Stuart hadn’t had a girlfriend in a few months. The demands of his job made it kind of hard to maintain a relationship, and it was difficult meeting people. He didn’t like the bar scene and his few experiments with dating apps had been disastrous. But now, just as he moved across the country, he had met a remarkable woman on the job.
The idea of taking her out made him smile.
But enough of that, he told himself. You don’t get any fun until this is over.
All work and no play make Stuart a dull boy.
Yeah, well, you have to be a dull boy for a while.
At least he was sitting in a cool air conditioned office, away from the searing Arizona summer sun.
And then, just as his stomach began to growl for some lunch, he hit on a serious suspect.
Derek Baxter was a two-time loser standing at the plate ready to make his third strike. He had done two stints in prison for armed robbery. His first case was when he held up a convenience store on the highway near Benson. Judge Rodriguez gave this first offender with a clean record six years, of which he served four for good behavior.
The next offense was a year after he got out of prison, when he held up a liquor store in Phoenix. Judge Warburton gave him ten years. Once again he was released early for good behavior, only serving seven years.
The prison system should have learned its lesson the first time, because only four months after he got out he was charged with another armed robbery, again of a liquor store and again in Phoenix. Judge Warburton would again preside and Billings would represent the prosecution.
Derek Baxter was in serious trouble this time, because Arizona had a three strikes law, meaning that if an offender was convicted three times for certain felonies, he got a mandatory life sentence. Armed robbery was one of those felonies.
The case for the third armed robbery wasn’t open and shut, however, so Baxter had been released on bail pending trial. Bail had been set at half a million dollars by a suspicious court, but Baxter had somehow come up with the money.
That set off a big red light in Stuart’s head. This guy was a small-time thug with no visible means of income. Where would he get money like that? The details of the bail weren’t in this file.
The photo showed a potential match for the guy in the security camera footage. Baxter stood five nine, with short brown hair that would not have shown from the inside of that hood. He had the belly too. More than what appeared in the security camera, but the photo was taken in prison and many inmates lost weight after they got released.
The only thing that didn’t really match was Baxter’s preferred weapon. In all cases he had used a pistol. That didn’t bother Stuart too much. It made sense to use a pistol. A knife doesn’t look nearly as intimidating to someone standing behind a counter.
Without a word, Stuart spun his office chair around and launched himself across the room, the little wheels on the chair gliding him across the floor to Alexa’s desk.
She chuckled. “You’re acting like Stacy.”
“Bring her to the office some time. We’ll race down the hall.”
Stuart grabbed her chair, which also had wheels, and launched them back across the room, stopping in front of his computer.
Alexa laughed, but stopped laughing when she saw what was on the screen.
She read, her face growing serious.
“Good behavior,” she said. “He can behave when it suits him. That shows control. You thinking that he wanted to delay his trial by killing the state prosecutor and both judges?”
“The prospect of life in prison might have affected his reasoning. Or maybe he knew he would go down no matter what, so he decided to literally stick it to the man.”
“His apartment isn’t far,” Alexa said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stuart studied the apartment building. It was a cheap two-story affair of concrete in a run-down neighborhood. No standalone houses here, just more concrete apartment complexes and a couple of vacant lots filled with trash. Behind Baxter’s apartment complex was a strip mall with a liquor store, a pawn shop, a bail bondsman, and a porn shop. Baxter’s string of armed robberies had not brought him prosperity.
And yet he had come up with half a million in bail money.
