The Violet Hour, page 12
At the sink he brushed his teeth, flossed rigorously, gargled mouthwash, then rubbed post-shave lotion around his face, jaw, throat. He looked at his hairless chest in the mirror and squirted more lotion into his hand to apply it there too. Then his gaze dropped to his undershorts.
“All or nothing,” he murmured to himself.
With the lotion on his fingers, he tugged open the elastic of the shorts with his free hand and part squatted to reach all the freshly bare skin down there. If tonight he should find himself in a similar situation to the one in Teddy Green’s back office, he’d be damn sure his hostess wasn’t just going through the motions this time.
“Now, now, kid, steady yourself,” he muttered, feeling himself stiffen.
He took his hand from his shorts and rinsed the lotion from his fingers under the faucet. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the other night. Except whenever the memory came back it slipped further into fantasy – him lifting her from her knees, tugging up her dress while she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her up against the filing cabinet. Or turning her around and taking her over the desk while she stared at him over her shoulder and begged him for more, the diamond glinting in her parted lips—
His phone buzzed in the other room.
“Fuck me, what now?” He sighed, squeezing at his crotch through his shorts as he stepped into the bedroom – a double; why not, it was on company expenses – and snatched up the iPhone from the bedside table. It was a message from Matthews with an attachment.
Intel from Parker, just received. Any idea who this guy is? He’s not one of the usuals.
Parker was their colleague out in the field, but his target wasn’t any individual in particular. He was one of a team of agents detailed to monitoring the comings and goings of all organized criminal gang activity in the area. They had eyes on both the Maxwells’ and the Greens’ operations, and it was thanks to them that the alert regarding Vivian Rosedale’s whereabouts had first been flagged. Follow Vivian, find her wanted father, had been some chump’s idea at HQ, and thus Jasper had been called upon for the task. He could have argued that it wouldn’t be as straightforward as all that, but he’d kept his mouth shut. The wife had become nothing but a continuous ball ache and he was glad of the excuse to fly thousands of miles to the other side of the country. It wasn’t far enough, but it would do for now. He was already feeling the fruits of his freedom. And warming considerably to this case.
Jasper glanced at the shirt and pants laid out neatly pressed on the bed. He’d have to leave soon. Maybe the photos could wait. But curiosity got the better of him and he clicked open the attachment. Fifty-five pictures in total. He looked at the first. One female, one male. Daytime. Backs to the camera. Coast in the background.
Jasper sighed, his thumb hitting the screen to swipe quickly through each one.
“Wait, wait, wait…”
He stopped, went back a couple of shots. The woman was facing the camera. She was still a little obscured but, as Jasper pinched the screen to zoom in, it was clear the woman was Vivian. Not Vivian in killer dress and killer heels, but Vivian in casual clothes and a raincoat big enough to swallow her. She looked about sixteen. It was hard to read her expression, but she wasn’t smiling. Jasper shifted the picture to the male. He was sitting but his face was side on to the camera lens. Not enough for Jasper to place him. He flipped through more of the photos and then stopped again when he got to a clearer shot of the two of them.
As Jasper studied the photograph he backed up to sit in the velvet armchair against the wall. In the picture, Vivian’s arms are folded protectively close to her body while the guy does all the talking. Whatever he’s saying she’s not thrilled about. But that’s not what bothered Jasper. What bothered him was he knew the guy. Or at least he thought he did. He was wearing a dark raincoat with the hood up, but there was something about the lanky son of a bitch.
Getting up from the chair, Jasper went across the room to the desk and hit a key on his laptop to bring it to life. He clicked a file open and scanned through shots he’d taken of Ike Scott and his crew over the last month and a half. Then he checked the photo on the phone again. Matthews was right – he wasn’t one of the usuals.
He backed up to the bed and eased down onto the mattress while flipping through the rest of Parker’s photos, but returned to the previous one, the most clear head shot. He scrutinized the guy’s features long enough that something sparked and he jerked his head up.
“No fucking way.”
Jasper leaned over to grasp the laptop and pulled it onto his lap. Entering his password, he logged into the FBI archives, then hesitated with his fingers drumming on the keys, his mind straining to capture the details of a vague memory for something solid he could use. It was during the time he spent at the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. The glorified filing job that was only supposed to be for three months but turned into a whole fucking year. If you ever get a chance to work for BAU, they said, do it, it’s a great experience. Great experience, my ass, Jasper thought, but if he was right about this now, then that year-long detail wasn’t such a waste of time after all.
He began by narrowing his search to serial killer cases over a twelve-month period between 2018 to 2019. Thankfully, these days they never saw the numbers of cases they’d had back in the seventies and eighties, so the search brought up only a hundred and fifty instances of reported serial murders across the entire country during that time. He scrolled through the list of a hundred or more before he found the one that leapt out at him. Sykes County. He clicked on the file and the page opened.
The first thing he saw was a photograph. Carl Edward Evertson. A family snapshot instead of a mugshot. The latter wouldn’t have been pretty, not with the top of his head missing after he blew it away rather than serve his time. “Coward,” Jasper muttered. He scrolled down through the notes until he found what he was looking for. Then he clicked open another tab and tapped the details into a standard search engine and hit the first news article on the list. And there it was. Confirmation. The photograph accompanying the news item was a standard-issue employee snapshot of the neutral-faced detective on the Sykes County serial murder case. It was also the same man who had been snapped talking to Vivian Rosedale just yesterday.
Jasper put the laptop on the mattress and picked up the phone once again to double check the photo.
“Son of a gun.”
Taking the telephone number of the Sykes County Sheriff’s Office from the on-screen file, Jasper tapped it into his phone.
“Could I speak with Detective Lawrence Hoskins, Homicide, please?” Jasper asked as soon as his call was picked up.
The female deputy at the other end of the line answered after only a momentary pause. “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no one of that name working here currently.”
“No? Has he transferred? It’s really important I reach him.”
“Again, I’m sorry, sir. We can’t give out that kind of information.”
Jasper stifled a sigh, raising his eyes to the ceiling as he calmly relayed his name and credentials to the deputy. Then when she still hesitated, he added, “Look, I report to Samuel George of the Criminal Investigations Division if you want to put a call in to him. Or I can name you a hundred of my colleagues, some you may have worked with at some point. But really, all I want to know is where I might get hold of Detective Hoskins. It’s regarding a case he led while I was seconded to the BAU, a closed case I’d like to discuss with him. Some loose ends to tie up so we can file the paperwork.”
“Okay, sir, I understand,” she offered, with enough reluctance to suggest she still wouldn’t make this easy. “As I said, he no longer works for the sheriff’s office. In fact, I believe he’s no longer in law enforcement.”
“What, not anywhere?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Are you sure? Could he be working for another agency?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, sir. As far as I’m aware, he retired from the job.”
“Shit,” Jasper muttered. Then sensing the deputy was about to hang up, he added, “Could you tell me when he retired, ma’am?”
She hesitated. “I’m afraid I couldn’t say with any accuracy.”
“Rough guess, just rough guess.”
“Well, rough guess… I guess it’s been going on for around two years since we last saw him here. I’m afraid that’s all I know. If you’d like to speak with the sheriff, I can get him to call you?”
“No. Thank you, Deputy, you’ve been very helpful.”
Jasper ended the call, thinking she couldn’t have been any less helpful, but that wasn’t her fault. He looked again at Hoskins’ mugshot on the FBI file and did the math. Two years since the deputy had seen him. Two years ago was when the Evertson case came to an almost horrific conclusion. There weren’t many killers who made their next victim the very detective trying to take them down. So was that why Hoskins quit? It had to be. What a terrific balls-up; no amount of cake fines would get him off the hook for that. Jasper didn’t rate the guy all that much for committing such a screw-up, but he did understand why he threw in the towel. That part made sense. But not this part. Not the part where all of a sudden he turns up in Palmrey Beach talking to the girlfriend of the town’s most protected and adored criminal. The same girlfriend who also just so happens to be Jimmy Rosedale’s fucking daughter. That part didn’t add up at all.
Jasper opened a search tab on his phone, typed in Lawrence Hoskins Sykes County, then scanned through the results. Namely, newspaper articles involving the sheriff’s office, no social media pages, nothing personal.
“Typical cop.”
He got to his feet and paced the room, thumb hovering over Matthews’ number. How would that go down if he called this in? What impact might that have on the case? Maybe none at all. But maybe it would. Because perhaps the deputy he spoke to on the phone was ill-informed and Hoskins was working for another department. And if he was, then perhaps the Bureau would haul Jasper out of there – hell, let some other department fork out the resources, what difference would it make so long as they reached the same end point?
Jasper paused by the bed and looked down at his shirt and pants. He rubbed his thumb over the baby-soft skin of his jaw. No, perhaps he should keep this to himself for now, at least until he knew more. Get to Hoskins himself maybe, find out what the fuck he’s playing at, sniffing around a wanted fugitive’s daughter. Jasper felt a stab of something unpleasant irritate his gut but didn’t know what or why. He tapped at the phone screen, backing up from the contacts and going into the gallery where he brought up the picture Vivian had sent him that night. She looked up at him with wide, deep brown eyes, the smallest hint of a smile teasing the corner of her mouth, that stud in her pretty pouting lip…
He dropped her onto the bed, his gaze holding steady to hers as he reached for the shirt and slipped his arms into the sleeves.
Chapter 14
The name of the establishment was Fabrizio’s and it was a mile inland from Palmrey Beach on the outskirts of the town, just short of the highway. It was a nightclub, or at least that’s what Hoss assumed it was, judging by the attire of the clientele. And also exclusive – ticket-only at the door. If he had to guess, he’d say a club hadn’t always been the venue’s purpose. Situated where it was, away from the strip and any other bars, the one-story building about the size of half a football field would have been an industrial unit or office block in its former life. He also inferred from its windowless frontage, red-painted exterior walls, and golden illuminated sign above the double black doors to the entrance, that this was a new renovation, maybe one of Ike’s first pet projects since Teddy Green’s departure. The whole place screamed Isaac Scott. And Hoss disliked him more and more by the second.
He had followed Ike, Vivian, and their entourage here from Reegan’s an hour ago, and was now sitting in the rental car in a builder’s yard across the road, hunkered down in the driver’s seat and watching the comings and goings through the telephoto lens of the Olympus. The gray Focus was inconspicuous, but all the same he wished he could have gotten a model with tinted windows. As this was a trip that wasn’t strictly on the record, though, all the expenses were coming out of his own pocket. So he’d exchanged the Trailblazer for the Ford at a rental company ten miles outside of Palmrey, and other than a tiny Fiat he could barely fit his legs in, it had been the cheapest option he could get. Which was another reason he was tense about this whole thing. It was bleeding him dry. At this rate it was looking like he’d be cutting into his savings before the month was out.
He had snapped a few shots of Vivian earlier, outside the entrance while she waited for Ike to finish his conversation with their chauffeur, and he returned to those photos now, zooming in on Jimmy’s daughter. Once again she wore the fur jacket that he’d seen her wear at Reegan’s that first time, but beneath it now she had on a scarlet dress that hugged her waist and hips and ended halfway down her thighs. Red heels went someway to make up the height difference between her and her boyfriend, but he still had to bend down to kiss her on the forehead before they went inside, his inked hand, ringed fingers, clutching the back of her neck. But what Hoss noticed most about her was the look on her face. She looked distanced, distracted, or scared, he wasn’t sure which. But not happy. This was not a young woman reveling in the carefree joys and recklessness of youth.
Hoss lowered the camera to his lap. Maybe he was reading too much into it. Concocting scenarios based on his experiences of career criminals like Ike Scott and projecting those onto Vivian Rosedale. Perhaps the poor kid was just thinking of her mother. Or, hell, she was probably just freezing. The temperature on the Ford dashboard told him it was close to zero and the girl was wearing next to nothing; it was a wonder she didn’t catch her death. He tutted and shifted in the seat. He sounded like her old man.
A vehicle came up the road and pulled into the parking lot outside the club. Hoss raised the camera, resting its lens on the steering wheel as the SUV, a Ford this time, no tinted windows, stopped in a space and the driver got out. He was about Hoss’s height but a little older, hair thinner, a white shirt straining over a burgeoning gut. The shirt was tucked into black belted pants, and from the back seats of the SUV he took a suit jacket that he tugged on and brushed down with his hands. Locking the Ford, he checked his reflection in the back window, using his fingers to comb his hair into a position that would make it look like he had more than he did. When he was done, he crossed the parking lot and jogged up the steps to the front doors with a broad smile and a flash of his ticket. There was some chatter with the bouncer holding fort, and then he disappeared inside.
Hoss shifted his attention back to the year-old Ford. The plate was local, but the sticker on the trunk confirmed it was a rental. Scanning back through the photographs he’d just taken, he peered closely at the man’s face. There was something familiar about him. But the more Hoss looked, the less he came up with. Maybe he saw him at one of the clubs on his first scouting mission.
It was quiet outside the club entrance now. The bouncer lit a cigarette and paced back and forth across the lot. Hoss put the camera on the passenger seat and folded his arms. Getting Vivian alone would be his first obstacle. It seemed wherever she went it was with company, either Ike or his security. And it wasn’t as if he could call her up or send her a message – when she had called him yesterday, it was from an unknown number. Most likely a burner. So all he could do was sit, wait, and watch, find out what she did at the end of the night (went to Ike’s place or her own?), learn about her routines (what nights did she go out, when might she stay home or meet with friends instead?). Tomorrow he’d stake out the strip, see if he could get a handle on where she worked and when. Surely she wasn’t with Ike and his boys twenty-four-seven?
His phone vibrated on the dashboard and Hoss snatched it up. It was almost midnight, so it wouldn’t be Kate, but a call at midnight was still a concern. More so when he saw who it was.
“Mierda, at last. Where are you?” came the greeting when he answered.
“Evening, Cassandra. Do you know what time it is?”
“Answer the question.”
“All right. It’s midnight.”
She muttered under her breath. “My question, pendejo. You’re there, aren’t you?”
“If you mean, am I here? Yes, I believe I am here. Though others might disagree.”
Across the road the doors of the club opened. Hoss clutched the camera with his free hand, but it was just two young lads stepping outside for a smoke.
“Listen, Fletch, it’s a little late for existential ponderings. You know me, I need my beauty sleep.”
Silence. Not even a quip. Damn, she already knew. He was out of lives.
“It’s complicated,” he conceded. “There are things you don’t know and don’t need to know.”
“I won’t argue with that,” she said, then sighed as if the energy required to be angry was more than she had available. “Joder. I can’t believe you. How much danger are you in?”
He stared out the window at Fabrizio’s. “Zero.”
“Likelihood of arrest?”
“Less than zero.”
“And is this going to threaten the business before it’s barely off the ground?”
“Only if you let it.”
He raised his eyes to the roof of the car. It was a pathetic reply, passing the buck when he knew exactly what she was saying, that this wasn’t just about him anymore. Now that they were in partnership, anything he did affected her too. He thought fast. Made a diversion. “By the way, soldier, you got those new cards printed yet? Hoskins & Fletcher, PIs? Make us look professional?”
She took a moment to answer. He wondered if she was already regretting her signature on the paperwork that tied her to him, and was maybe strategizing a swift separation.
“I might just see how this thing plays out first,” she said at last. “Wouldn’t want to waste an afternoon crossing your name off them all.”
