Edge of Black Page 17

  Chapter 31

  Fletcher called Bianco from the car. When she answered, he gave her the good word.

  “Wife claims he’s impotent.”

  “Impotent?” Bianco repeated.

  “Yep. She didn’t go into much detail, but I got the sense that it’s been going on for a while.”

  “They had a son, though, the one who was killed in Iraq.”

  “That they did. So he wasn’t always having trouble. But if our recent reports are to be believed, it would be kind of hard for him to participate in a bunch of sex games with hookers. No pun intended.”

  Bianco actually giggled, a sound so incongruous with her station that it made Fletcher laugh, too. He just didn’t know what to make of her. Sweet as pie, shrewd as hell, and cool as damn it. Not to mention one hell of a looker.

  Watch it, Fletch. Don’t go mixing business with pleasure.

  “So where are the videotapes of him screwing boys? Where are the hookers who’ve serviced him? Do you have somebody in Vice you trust? Maybe the rumors are just that, unsubstantiated and worthless.”

  “Maybe. More importantly, what about the murders in his home state? The DNA match was bothering me, so I went ahead and got a second sample just to be sure. The odds of them messing up are slim, but it does happen. The murders are violent, done by someone who probably didn’t just quit for his health. Impotence could explain a cessation in the deaths. Any chance you took a look through ViCAP to see if anything popped from the D.C. area? If there’s a murder that matches the M.O. while he’s in D.C., and the DNA matches, we know for sure if Mrs. Congressman is a liar.”

  “There is a ViCAP search parameter that was inputted, but we haven’t gotten the results yet. If you’d like to follow up on that, I’d be most grateful. Inez said she’s trying to track down the detective who worked the Indiana cases, but he’s overseas somewhere and she’s having trouble reaching him. His background on this would be helpful. On paper, it certainly seems our congressman is leading some sort of double life. But that’s just not the easiest thing to do in this town. People are watching your every move, just waiting for you to screw up so they can swing in, humiliate you and take you down.”

  Fletcher got the sense that Bianco wasn’t talking about just the congressman anymore.

  * * *

  Sleep was becoming highly overrated.

  Fletcher worked all night. He took apart the file on the congressman. Looked at every single detail the Indianapolis police had pulled together from the three murders. Something just wasn’t adding up, and he didn’t know what it was.

  On the surface, the congressman looked good for the murders. DNA was hard to argue with. But something was off. Something big. And Fletcher was getting a bit frustrated. He double-checked to see if the ViCAP report was back yet—nothing. He amended the file to include cold cases from Virginia, D.C., and Maryland since 2000. The second round of DNA wasn’t back, either. He wished he was a detective on TV, the evidence run and returned in two hours, the trial the next day. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  At midnight, after reading Leighton’s journal for two hours and gleaning nothing of help outside of his seemingly genuine desire to give back to the people of the great state of Indiana, not murder their co-eds, Fletcher was starting to feel he was at yet another dead end. He decided to follow Bianco’s suggestion and made a phone call to a friend of his.

  “Vice.”

  “It’s Fletcher. Is Thompsen in?”

  “Morgan? Nah. She’s out on the streets tonight. Some hotel sting down on 14th Street. Wanna leave a message?”

  “That was a joke, right?”

  The guy cackled and hung up. There was little to no chance that a message left at a precinct would make it to Morgan Thompsen, much less in a timely manner. He might as well head down to 14th Street and see what was shaking. He knew the setup, they’d have Morgan, who used the undercover name London when she was out on stakeouts, walking the streets, hanging out in the high-end hotel bars, wherever the need was greatest, looking for dates. These stings usually netted a solid ten to fifteen johns in a single night, oftentimes men whose names were recognizable. And everyone enjoyed watching “London” on the prowl—Thompsen was a very pretty girl with very long legs and variable hair depending on her mood. Most johns thought they’d hit the jackpot when they rolled up and saw the “looker hooker,” as she was sometimes referred to in-house, waiting for them: her hip jutted out, her hair in pigtails, or a pageboy, or teased up in a beehive, and a furtive grin on her face. Or when they found her alone on a corner bar stool, in a sleek little black dress and sky-high Louboutins, all dressed up with nowhere to go in the fanciest bars in town.

  The street was hopping tonight, the shine of the streetlamps on the asphalt making little rings of safety like stage spotlights. The girls stayed in the rings as much as possible; it not only showed them off to their potential customers, but to the pimps as well, who kept careful watch over their flock at night.

  Crazies liked to drive these streets just as much as the local gym rats looking to bust a nut.

  Fletcher was lucky in his timing, found London getting into a black Mercedes SUV. He followed the car to an alley three blocks over, and the moment the money was produced, London flicked handcuffs on the john and stepped from the vehicle, pulling her practically nonexistent skirt down over her ass.

  The rest of her team closed in, and the arrest was made. A solid bust.

  Thompsen walked back a block, nonchalant, as if she were unaware of the tussle taking place in the alley, and leaned against the brick wall and lit a smoke. Fletcher rolled his car up to the curb and put down his window.

  She recognized him, but stayed in character. It was safer, just in case. And he was in an unmarked, so to the naked eye, they were just a john and jill, negotiating. She let an arm trail the top of the car and leaned into the window.

  “I will be poked sideways. Darren Fletcher. What the hell are you doing out here? You want a date?”

  He smiled. God, that felt good. First real smile in days. “With you? London? Hell, yeah. Get in and let me take you for a ride, mama.”

  She flicked the cigarette onto the sidewalk and hopped in the car. Her blue eyes flashed, and she leaned back in the seat, relaxing.

  “Ah, that feels good. Man, I hate the street. Give me the hotels any day. My feet are killing me. How do they wear these heels?”

  “Necessity is the mother of all invention, right?”

  “Yeah, but the only reason you need these suckers is to make your legs look longer and your ass stick out. For the working girls, it’s kind of a moot point, they’re going to get picked up regardless of their ass hanging out an extra couple of inches. This ain’t the 9:30 Club.”

  She took off one of the stilettos and massaged the ball of her foot. He saw her wave off the team who was looking out for her tonight, a couple of sex crimes detectives he should remember the names of but didn’t.

  “Where should I go?” Fletcher asked.

  “Head back toward the strip. You can drop me off like I got a second score on the way back. What’s up with you out prowling? Just stop to say hi?”

  “Nah, I got a question. Congressman Leighton. You know him?”

  “You mean have I ever run across him out here? No. But word is he’s into some pretty kinky shit.”

  “Exactly. Word is. I need to nail it down. You know anyone who’s serviced him? Maybe someone who you owe a favor? Or a decent CI? I don’t want someone too motivated, if you catch my drift.”

  Overly motivated people lied. She understood.

  “You just need the real scoop, huh? He died Tuesday. Why bring this up now?”

  “Because there’s a bigger issue going on.”

  “Ah.” Thompsen was a cop, she knew the drill. Cross the i’s and dot the t’s. “Let
me think.” She tapped her finger to her forehead, disturbing the bangs of her platinum pageboy-cut wig. “We had that bust back in April, they were running dope and girls through the back of that Chinese place on U Street. I hauled in a couple of cookies that are old-school, been around the block a hundred times, and then some. They’re specialists, too. I know word is he likes multiples, boys and girls. Right?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “The kinky ones aren’t on the street as much, though. They run things off craigslist now. Everyone who’s anyone just does it online. Supposed to be safer, but I don’t know. I tell the girls, you don’t date men whose eyes you can’t look into. You can tell a lot about a john just by looking at him. But they don’t all listen to me.”

  “Wise advice.”

  “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “I want one of them to sit down with a sketch artist.”

  Thompsen leaned back against the door. “You think someone’s using his name?”

  “You are quick, London.”

  “Hey, that’s why they have me out here, running the streets. It’s a good ploy, it’s not like the working girls and boys spend a lot of time reading Congressional Quarterly. If they don’t know who he is, what he looks like, then it would be easy to impersonate him. So sure, I can wrestle you up a couple of cookies for that. Need them downtown?”

  “JTTF.”

  “Ooh. Aren’t you the bee’s knee?”

  “Hardly. I’m just trying to be sure I’m not a horse’s ass. Tomorrow doable?”

  “Sure. I’ll bring them in once I finish this shift and grab two winks. Say, ten, eleven?”

  “That sounds good. Thanks, Morgan. I owe you one.”

  He pulled to the curb. He was a block away from where he first sighted her.

  She put her hand on the door handle. “Thanks for the interlude. We should get together, Fletch. Hang out. You can buy me a beer.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  In the blink of an eye, she became London, rolling around in the front seat, a wide smile on her face. She opened the car door, hooting, “Whew, honey. I don’t know who gave who the ride there.”

  Then she leaned in the window and adjusted her bra. She had a rather amazing rack, and he chided himself. They were colleagues. He wasn’t supposed to be admiring her tits. But she was giving him a show. Maybe there was something there after all. He tucked it away to follow up on another time.

  She cupped her right breast and said in a husky, come-hither voice, “By the way. If you owe me? I intend to collect.”

  With a smile she flounced off, and it was all Fletcher could do not to run after her and beg her to get back in the car and take him to an alley. Five minutes with her would probably be worth throwing away his entire career.

  * * *

  The more he thought about someone using the congressman’s name on the street, the more drawn to the idea he was. It was a good ploy, and the congressman had plenty of enemies. People hated what he stood for, sure; no matter what your views, you were guaranteed around fifty percent agreed with you and fifty didn’t, and the ones who didn’t could get vociferous at times. And he’d changed sides on a very important issue—the military. Doves don’t become hawks, they get eaten by them. So he could easily have foes on both sides of the aisle that could benefit from some well-placed, well-timed rumors surfacing in the media.

  He needed more time. More time to figure out all the angles. But he didn’t have that luxury. The killer may have made his latest move, or the chess game could just be beginning. The sooner he worked out Leighton’s life, the closer the rest of the JTTF would be to the killer’s identity.

  While he digested that, Fletcher put a call in to Inez. Though it was late, she answered on the first ring sounding chirpy and fresh.

  “You’re chipper.”

  “I’ve got Conlon’s computer.”

  “Oh, good. Did you call his mother and ask her to give it to us, or did she bring it in?”

  “I tried her all evening but it seems she turned off the phones. I assume she’s terribly upset, not that I blame her. I finally got fed up and headed out there. She was at the funeral home arranging for her son’s burial, but a friend of the family was at the house and gave me the computer. I left your card with a note that you’d call her. I’m heading back downtown now. I’ll have the computer guys take a crack at it.”

  “Good. Then go home, and get some rest. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow, and I need you at your best.”

  “I’m always at my best. But a couple hours of sleep wouldn’t kill me. I’ve been up for forty-eight straight.”

  “Go. Sleep. See you tomorrow.”

  There were too many moving parts to this case. He made a mental list of things that he needed to follow up: reading the congressman’s journal, finding out why Glenn Temple had the inhaler instead of the security detail, why Leighton left his briefcase at home, who sent the text to his phone, getting the secondary DNA test back and talking to the detective from the Indiana cases. Not to mention keeping in touch with Sam and Xander to see what they discovered, and treading carefully around the JTTF, because he still wasn’t one-hundred percent certain they had his best interests at heart.

  Even though they had a whole division of people working on the case, Fletcher felt he needed to be on top of every aspect. He supposed that’s what made him happy, the juggling, the rushing around. He just wasn’t used to doing this without a partner—Lonnie Hart was the best sounding board and deputy a man could have. He wasn’t quite comfortable with his new team at the JTTF. He knew that was only natural, and they were all feeling the pressure.

  At least there was Sam. He trusted her implicitly, even when she made him see red. Her help on the case had already been invaluable. He would have loved to have her here, by his side, to bounce things off of, but his purposes for sending her to Colorado were twofold: let her feel she was helping, and get her safe in case of another attack. Truth be told, the latter had been foremost in his mind when he’d concocted the plan to send her to Denver.

  He knew he was going to have to deal with his unrequited feelings for her sooner rather than later, or he’d mess up their friendship, and he’d rather have her in his life than not, even if that meant letting her belong to another man. He’d find a way to move on after this case was wrapped up.

  His cell rang, and for a moment his heart sped up, thinking it might be her, that she’d been feeling him thinking of her and reached out, but he quickly saw it was Bianco.

  He hit the speaker.

  “You’re up late.”

  “No rest for the wicked.”

  “Inez has Marc Conlon’s computer.”

  “Excellent. Listen, I’ve got good news. We’ve caught a break. Our attacker miscalculated. He dropped a backpack and clothes in an out-of-the-way subway Dumpster that is normally emptied at eight every morning. But because of the panic, no one went in to empty it until this evening, and they were under instructions to look for anything out of place when they did. There was an address recovered, there’s a team headed there now.”

  Finally. A break.

  “Give it to me, I’ll meet them there.”

  “You stay on our victims. We need all the information we can get on them.”

  “Come on, Andi. That’s not fair. I want to be in on the bust. If this is our guy, I want to be the one talking to him.”

  He heard her talking in the background, then she came back.

  “You will be. But you can’t go in without the proper gear. So get your fanny back here on the double, then you can head to the scene.” She hung up, and Fletcher barely refrained from screaming at her. He wasn’t the only person on this team, knew everyone had their roles. But damn it, he wanted to be there when they snatched this guy up.

 
He gunned it. He was only ten minutes away; if he hurried he’d be able to grab his gear and make the bust.

  * * *

  Fletcher arrived at the scene just as the team made entry on their new suspect’s apartment. They were in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, up the street from an Ethiopian restaurant Fletcher had eaten at once, at three in the morning, after a night out on the town. Run by natives, it served the traditional bread of their land, and that had been Fletcher’s undoing—the thin loaf reminded him of dead skin pulled off a sunburned arm and he’d been forced to the gutter to lose the night’s excess. Just knowing it was nearby made him queasy in remembrance.

  There was nothing like a good SWAT entry to make your blood rise. It was especially exciting at night, when anything could come out of the darkness. Monsters and weapons and shrieking women—one never knew what would be behind that door.

  He stepped from the car and watched as men bristling with weapons rushed up three flights of stairs, took the door and disappeared inside. After a few moments, he heard the shouts of the team: “Clear.” “Clear.”

  Which meant no suspect.

  He jogged up the stairs to the apartment, a tiny studio on the third floor of the building. Even without a suspect, it didn’t take much to see that they’d hit pay dirt. He was careful not to touch anything—the apartment was lacking in most normal amenities, instead had a long, low desk along the wall, and a hard wooden chair, that was all. A dark-haired man was gingerly pushing a few things around on the desk with a pencil. Fletcher assumed it must be bomb-building equipment. It certainly wasn’t the leftovers of someone’s dinner.

  “Jesus. What is all that?”

  One of the SWAT men looked at Fletcher. “Sir? Do you have clearance?”

  “Darren Fletcher, Metro Homicide, attached to the JTTF. Yes, I do. What do we have here?”

  “Ah, Fletcher. Heard of you. I’m Brandt, lead explosives technician. Looks like someone was cooking acetone peroxide. If you look around you’ll see some nails, tacks, steel ball bearings and a few leftover canisters. I’d say we have someone carrying a bunch of explosives out there. He built his bombs here and God knows where he is now.”