Текст книги "Judas Kiss"

Автор книги: J. T. Ellison

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“So have I.” The image of the dead security guards stood out in stark clarity as if they were right there in the car with them. She shook the thought off, then another crossed her mind.

“Your Italian is perfect. Is that where you learned, watching some Italian psycho?”

He grimaced. “My Italian, and other languages. It was part of why they wanted me.”

“Other languages? What, like German and French?”

He was getting visibly uncomfortable.

“More than those three?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Jeez, Baldwin, how many languages do you speak?”

342

J.T. Ellison

“Thirteen.”

She caught her jaw before it hit her chest. She thought back a few moments. Honesty. Omissions weren’t lies, were they? Creative lies, white lies that were meant to protect, those didn’t count, right? She shoved that thought away. He was telling her now. Lord knows she’d held a few things back about her past.

“Garrett’s heart?”

“Fine.” He looked like he expected her to fly off the handle. She didn’t like that he’d been forced to lie to her, but that’s how she saw it. He wouldn’t have done it voluntarily.

She grinned. “Okay. Prove it.”

“Prove it?”

“Tell me you love me. In…Polish.”

Now he was smiling with her. “It’s not one of my best, but okay. Kocham ciebie, Taylor. With all my heart.” He kissed her, leaving her breathless. When they stopped, her fingers were entwined in his hair and her ponytail had come down. Shit, the top button of her jeans was even undone. Making out in public, just so classy. Setting herself to rights, she said, “I see we’re going to have a lot of fun with this little talent of yours.”

“You’re not mad?”

“About the OA? I’m not thrilled, but I know you. If you think it’s the right thing to do, I’ll stand by you. Just don’t be dragging any more of these wackos home with you, okay? I have enough to deal with.”

The thought sobered them up. “You realize that the Pretender is following your moves now. He’s calling himself an admirer, but he’s more of a danger to you now than ever.”

Judas Kiss

343

“Yeah, I gathered that. There’s nothing I can do about it at the moment. Fitz will work the case. We just have to see if there’s any evidence that can help us put a face to his little pseudonym.”

“We haven’t heard the last of him.” He turned the car on, put it in gear.

“No, we haven’t. But we’ve got bad guys aplenty to deal with this afternoon. Let’s go solve the Wolff case.”

They were quiet, following West End into Broadway, passing a rollicking crowd of tourists at Tootsie’s. When they got back to the CJC, she saw Baldwin scoping the parking lot before pulling in. The threat from Aiden may have been past, but the realization that he dealt with more people of the same ilk made her uneasy, regardless of the assurances she gave him. Thirty-Five

Marcus and Lincoln had evidently heard the news, because they were both wide-eyed when she walked back into the homicide office. Captain Price was sitting with them, a bushy red eyebrow raised in expectation. She covered the basics as quickly and as vaguely as she could. Baldwin came in and sat down, handed her a Diet Coke and let her tell the story.

“The Pretender seems to be back in Nashville. I don’t know what this means, but he’s just killed someone from the FBI’s wanted list. The man’s name was Aiden. Baldwin worked a case that involved him, and Aiden was seeking retribution. He was responsible for the killings at my house. But he’s dead now, and we’ve got bigger issues.”

She showed them the Polaroid she’d borrowed from Fitz. Lincoln passed it to Marcus, and they both got stern looks on their faces.

“So the Pretender thinks he’s your personal bodyguard now?” Lincoln asked. “What the hell?”

“Aiden was looking to hurt me. He went after Judas Kiss

345

Taylor, and the Pretender seems to have a sense of chivalry,” Baldwin said.

Price listened, then got up. “That’s it. There’s entirely too much bullshit flying around. I’m having a private security detail put on you, Taylor.”

“I’ve already done that,” Baldwin said. “I’ve had them on Taylor since yesterday. We’ll just keep up with the watchers, let them know what we know about the Pretender. They’re a good team, I trust them.”

So he wasn’t calling off the dogs while they were at the Parthenon, he was adding more.

“And how long are we planning to keep this up?”

Taylor was shaking her head. “No. I don’t want them.”

“You’re going to have to live with it, sugar.”

Baldwin’s stance told her arguing was fruitless.

“I agree. We can’t afford anything happening to you, LT. Lincoln and I will start looking for more clues with the Pretender case. We’ll find the bastard. In the meantime, we need to keep you off his radar,” Marcus said.

“I can take care of myself,” she grumbled, but when faced with four glowering men, all intent on keeping her out of harm’s way, she decided discretion was the better part of valor and acquiesced. For the time being.

“Can we at least get back to work?”

Price patted her on the head and she narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve got a meeting. Fill her in. You should be proud of your boys. And be careful, wildcat.”

“Yes, Dad,” she said.

“I’m going to join the captain for a moment. Be right back.” Baldwin left the room with Price, their conversation quickly moving out of earshot. Taylor rolled her eyes, then turned to Marcus and 346

J.T. Ellison

Lincoln. “Good grief. This has been a day. Let me have it. What’s the news on the Wolff case?”

Lincoln waved his hand to Marcus. “You go,” he said.

“Okay. To start with, we checked on the underage actresses. They’ve both split town, ostensibly for California. They had auditions today at Vivid Video, and we’ve got a call in to their ‘agent’ to get them to call us immediately when they get finished.”

“You mean when they come up for air?” Taylor said, making all of them laugh.

“Yeah. Then. So in the meantime, we’ve been looking at Todd Wolff’s files. We’ve confirmed he wasn’t in Savannah when he said he was. He used his gas card to fill up the day before the murder, Sunday, in Crossville. So Wolff was definitely in the state of Tennessee at least one day after the murder.”

“Doesn’t prove he did it.”

“No, but it does verify that he’s lied about several things. They’re arraigning him this afternoon, so we should get an opportunity to question him again late this evening. Julia Page and Miles Rose have already been informed that we want to have a chat.”

“If he was in Crossville Sunday, where was he Saturday?”

“That’s the question. We don’t know. He wasn’t in Savannah. His receptionist caved pretty quick when she realized we knew he was lying. She said he hadn’t been to the job site in over a week. The maestro here—” he gestured to Lincoln “—has been working his mojo on their computers. Corinne Wolff was a very bad girl.”

“Really?”

Lincoln handed her a sheaf of papers. “She was def– Judas Kiss 347

initely getting some nookie on the side. Here’s her little love notes, courtesy of her private e-mail. They are all from a separate address, a different provider, and password protected. The whole nine yards. We assume she didn’t share it with Todd, they have another couple of addresses that are obviously for his work, her friends, and another that’s solely smut related. This one was tucked away in a hidden folder.”

She knew it. Taylor glanced through the first few sheets. The usual online lovey-dovey stuff, typical of any relationship. “I don’t see a name. You’re sure this wasn’t between her and Todd?”

“Positive. I traced the IP address. It’s registered to a completely different person. The same person, by the way, that owns the IP address for Selectnet.com.” His smile was nonchalant, but his eyes burned with the knowledge that he’d done something remarkable. Taylor nearly fell out of her chair. “What? What do you mean? The California company that’s putting up the sex videos? My sex videos? Corinne’s involved in that?”

“They both are, though in completely different ways. Todd Wolff seems to be the purveyor of both fine art and the lowbrow stuff. He’s working for the Selectnet company, providing them with high-quality film. That’s his big sideline money-maker, the porno flicks he’s making in his basement. But we’ve gone through his finances with a fine-toothed comb, and we found some interesting purchases. Specifically, he bought forty of the cameras we found in the vents of your cabin.”

It took Taylor a moment to wrap her head around that little tidbit. “Todd Wolff was responsible for putting 348

J.T. Ellison

the cameras in my house? How in the world is that possible?”

“Not just your cabin. Here’s our theory. We’ve tracked down more of the uploaded videos to the Selectnet site. A huge number come from Nashville. Todd’s the head of Wolff Construction. It’s as easy as pie—when he builds a house, he places the cameras. The owners have no idea they’re there, and he gets to parlay all that unedited film into home movies on the Web site.”

Taylor gave a long, low whistle. “Do you realize how many houses he’s built? There could be cameras in all of them.”

“Well, forty of them that we suspect, at least.”

“But he didn’t build my cabin. How did that happen? How would Wolff have gotten into my house?”

“Here’s the genius part. Before he started Wolff Construction as a home builder, he was a renovator. He did contract jobs for insurance money. Say, for example, a person has a leak in their shower, has to file a claim on their home-owner’s insurance to get it fixed. The insurance company contracts with certain construction firms to do the work. We checked, and Wolff Construction was one of those companies. It’s how he made enough money, on the books at least, to graduate to the home building company. And the camera purchase is recent, only last year. He could have bought many, many more and we just haven’t found the records yet.”

Taylor let the thought gel. When had she had work done on the cabin? She didn’t remember…oh, yes, she did. She’d done a minor kitchen remodel a year after Judas Kiss

349

she moved in. But that wasn’t an insurance claim, and she didn’t remember working with Wolff Construction. She racked her brain trying to remember the name of the company she’d used, but it wouldn’t come. She told Lincoln that.

“I already thought of that,” he said. “Even before he started the work with the insurance companies, he worked for his dad. His dad owned several firms, one of which was—”

“Remedy. Remedy Remodelers. Son of a bitch.”

“Exactamundo.”

“Wow. Lincoln, this is fantastic work!”

“Aww, it wasn’t just me. Marcus did some of it.”

“Gracious of you,” Marcus said.

“Think nothing of it,” Lincoln jibed back. Taylor tuned out their banter. The tendrils of Wolff’s multiple illegalities would have serious ramifications. They needed to talk to the press, to get the word out. Which also meant rolling up the Selectnet shop. Even though the site had been pulled from the Internet, they still needed to bring in the ringleaders. For that, she needed Baldwin’s help.

“We need to have a press conference, among other things. I’m going to call Baldwin. How much information do you have that we can use to indict Selectnet.com? Because we have to take them down.”

“That’s what Price is doing. He’s talking to Dan Franklin and they’re designing a media campaign. He’s left it to us to wrap the case. So, here’s the rest of the story.”

“There’s more?”

“Much more. Marcus, you go. I’m getting parched.”

“Okay. We backtraced the IP address for the Select-350

J.T. Ellison

net company. The California holdings are a front. The money trail leads right back here to Nashville. Does the name Henry Anderson ring a bell?”

Taylor felt the name go through her like a lightning bolt. The image of the man connected to the name came, vivid and sharp. A name from the past.

“Are you joking?”

They both shook their heads.

“Do you know the story behind Henry Anderson?”

she asked.

“We’ve been familiarizing ourselves with it. He was one of your busts, that much we know. You got him into prison on child molestation charges. He charged you with brutality.”

“Ha. I kicked him in the balls when he tried to run during an arrest. He deserved it. Child molestation was the only charge we managed to get to stick. And it wasn’t even a felony count, it wasn’t the same kind of terminology we’d use today. I think he was ultimately charged with child endangerment, actually. We couldn’t do much better than that. A shame too, Henry’s quite the sleazeball. He was making movies back then. He served a few years, and got out.” She paused, snapped her fingers. “The movies. That’s it, isn’t it? Henry is Todd Wolff’s benefactor.”

Lincoln nodded. “That’s what we think. He is definitely the owner of Selectnet, and his reach looks to be deeper than that. We’re still running through all the information, but there’s definitely enough to tie him directly to underage porn. Among about a thousand other violations of the law.”

Taylor went to her little window, looked out across 2nd Avenue. There was dust in the air, probably from Judas Kiss

351

the construction site down the road, and the motes danced in the sun. Pretty. Unlike her thoughts right now. Abandoning the dust ballet, she turned back to them.

“I didn’t know he was still in the state. Henry fucking Anderson. He’s a mean son of a bitch. I had a difficult time with him, he came after me with both barrels, tried to have my testimony discredited, filed the charges against me. They got dismissed. I caught him red-handed with his dick in a kid’s face, and he tried to make me look bad.” She broke off again. All the little pieces fell into place.

“Tony Gorman. You said he was a member of Selectnet. He got word to Henry that I’d gotten a sniff of their enterprise. I’ll bet a million dollars that’s where the complaint came from, the one that Delores Norris listened to when she suspended me. I got a little cheeky with Gorman in our interview. Gorman wouldn’t have had the guts to do it himself, but if he were encouraged…Henry is a master manipulator. Unbelievable.”

Lincoln and Marcus were equally excited. “After we talk to Wolff this evening, hit him with all this information, that we know his role, surely we can shake his ass loose on the murder of his wife. He’s facing so many different counts and so many years in jail that it shouldn’t matter to him. Copping a plea to murder should be the least of his worries.”

“Well, we can hope. Let’s fill Page in, tell her what’s happening. Then we need to go get Henry Anderson. I’m assuming you’ve already found him, Lincoln?”

“Yep.” He flashed her a gap-toothed grin. “He’s right there on the sexual offenders’ database, all registered up like a good little boy.”

Thirty-Six

Taylor was getting her ducks in a row.

She spent a few minutes writing up the case notes while she waited for the requisite warrants to be arranged before they took their case-breaking field trip. The evidence implicating Todd Wolff was becoming increasingly cut-and-dried. They just needed one or two more pieces of the puzzle to lock him up for life, and it seemed her team, working closely with Baldwin’s FBI cohorts, was accomplishing that very nicely. The added satisfaction of bringing Henry Anderson to his knees should be quite the capper on her day. Taylor had talked to Julia Page and they’d decided to seek separate indictments against Todd for the pornography, the cyber Peeping Tom cameras, and the murder of Corinne Wolff. No sense throwing everything into one basket, have a technicality render an acquittal and not be able to retry due to the convoluted double-jeopardy statutes.

Dan Franklin was ready to go to the media with the story as soon as Baldwin’s people gave the okay sign Judas Kiss

353

that they’d raided the California Selectnet offices and taken possession of their physical records. Taylor and Marcus were ready to pick up Henry Anderson. Lincoln was set up in a private office, working with one of Baldwin’s forensic accountants, trying to unravel more of the Wolffs’ financial trail. Considering the accountant was petite and blond, Lincoln didn’t seem terribly put out.

Fitz was at the ME’s office. A quick autopsy was being performed on Aiden, courtesy of one of Baldwin’s calls to Quantico. Garrett Woods had sent down a staff forensic pathologist to help Sam with the evidentiary trail.

All these law enforcement folks, acting as one big happy family. They were lucky to have a good working relationship between all the jurisdictions involved. Taylor had to admit, it was nice to work with Baldwin again. His calm, cool demeanor always helped an investigation along, especially in the critical moments before they blew it wide open.

And at the moment, the man in question had his feet propped on the edge of her desk, watching her finagle a warrant for Henry Anderson. His green cat eyes were practically dancing with merriment watching her go through the elaborate machinations with the judge she’d pulled. It was the newly elected female judge, Sophia Bottelli, the former prosecutor who was adamant about i dotting and t crossing. Promise of a signature finally secured, Taylor hung up the phone and looked at Baldwin’s grinning visage.

“You look like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern. Could you smile any bigger?”

He swung his feet off her desk. “This whole week 354

J.T. Ellison

has been unreal. You’ve been raked over the coals, humiliated, yelled at by your fiancé, yet here you are, unscathed, ready to swoop in and take down the bad guy. I love it when you do that.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Think we’ve got it all covered?”

“I’d still like to know why Michelle Harris went on the national news and tried to discredit me. All I’ve tried to do is help her and her family.”

“Grief makes people do strange things.”

“Well, that’s true. When I first met her, I don’t know, there was something off about her. I’m probably just imagining things, it was a horrible moment for that whole family. Her mom was crying in the chaplain’s arms, sobbing her heart out, the dad was in shock, the other sister was blank as a slate. Michelle was the only one who had any semblance of composure about her. When she came into the room, there was this moment where she looked almost feral. She covered it up quickly, I’ve never seen it again, but for that instant…this is going to sound stupid.”

“No, go on.”

“It was like she wanted me. Sexually, I mean.”

“She isn’t married, is she?”

“No. She’s…” She cocked her head to the side.

“You know, I don’t know too much about her. I was so busy focusing on Corinne that I didn’t look too far into the rest of the family. Then we have the lovely moments without a badge this week. I’ve glossed over too much. We’ll have to spend the next few weeks filling in all the pieces. Never mind about Michelle. There’s nothing there. Like I said, it was probably my imagination.”

Judas Kiss

355

Marcus knocked on her door. “Hey, I was talking to Sam, she wants to talk to you. I’m going to transfer her in, okay?”

“Sure.” Taylor waited for the buzz that indicated a forwarded internal call, then picked up the receiver.

“I refuse to go to any more charity events,” Taylor said.

“Then goodie for you that’s not what I’m calling about. I have something you’re going to love.”

Taylor snickered. “Goodie for me? What are we, five? What’s the big news?”

“DNA’s back on Corinne Wolff.”

“Ooh, you’re right. That is something I want. Give it to me, sister.”

“You’re not going to believe this. The semen deposit was left by Henry Anderson.”

“Henry Anderson, as in my video-crazy pedophile?

The one who Todd Wolff was working for?”

“Todd Wolff was working for Henry Anderson?”

“Long story, but yes. In a nutshell, that’s exactly what’s been happening.”

“There’s more.”

“What?”

“Henry Anderson was the father of Corinne Wolff’s son.”

Taylor clicked the speakerphone button, gestured at Baldwin to pay attention. “Say that again.”

“Todd Wolff was not the father. The DNA on the fetus shows that Henry Anderson was the father of Corinne Wolff’s child.”

“Sam, you are the greatest gift a homicide detective could ever have.”

“Well, thank the mayor, because if he hadn’t asked 356

J.T. Ellison

for the proof that we could streamline the system, I never would have put this case’s DNA on the fast track.”

“I hope this means you’re getting a new lab?”

“I don’t know, T. I gotta run, we’ve got Aiden’s autopsy done and I need to write up some notes. By the way, tell Baldwin the crime scene techs found Aiden’s clothes in a bin behind the McDonald’s on West End. We’ll get that sent to his lab, if he’d like.”

Baldwin said, “Yes, please, Sam. Did you find an ID?”

“There was a wallet and a passport, both with ID

in the name of Jasper Lohan. High-end stuff, they look legitimate.”

“Jasper Lohan. I don’t recognize that name for him. No wonder we lost him in St. Louis. Cunning bastard.”

He wrote a quick note, then said, “Okay. Thanks.”

They hung up with promises to have dinner over the weekend. The banality of the arrangements made Taylor long for some peace and quiet, reminded her that she wasn’t like everyone else. Making plans was a luxury, a formality. In most cases, either she or Sam, or Baldwin, or Sam’s husband Simon, would be called to work a case. They lived in twenty-four-hour-a-day jobs, their lives cordoned off at the whim of a criminal. Taylor toyed with a pencil. “Corinne’s mother was right. Corinne was having an affair.”

“Goes a long way toward explaining the claustrophobia that Corinne was suffering from. A psychosomatic response to infidelity. Maybe she and Henry had broken up and she found herself pregnant.”

“If they’d broken up, why did she have sex with him right before she died? And why do these—” she waved Judas Kiss

357

the stack of love notes taken off Corinne Wolff’s computer at him “—have recent dates? No, Corinne was still deep into the affair.”

“Well, a better question is, did Henry Anderson kill her?”

Taylor thought about that for a moment. “I think Todd did it. That level of rage—I can see Todd finding out his wife was cheating on him, maybe even learning that the baby wasn’t his child, and snapping. We have the evidence against him, the blood in his truck, on his toolbox. A stranger isn’t going to know about the drawers in her closet, that’s an intimate spot to stash the tennis racquet after you’ve beaten someone to death with it. He’s been lying from the beginning, saying he was in Savannah when he was really in Nashville, or within a tank of gas to Nashville. Why did he lie if he didn’t kill her? It’s a helluva lot easier to prove an alibi that’s real than create a false one. No, my money is still on Todd. Henry Anderson is scum, but he’s a pussy. He’s a manipulator, someone who knows what buttons to push to take advantage of people. Blatant violence seems a bit strong for him.

“But I may be wrong. It’s been ten years since I’ve had this guy on my radar. He may have changed. Obviously being in jail didn’t help him find the error of his ways and clean up. It’s entirely possible that he did kill her.”

She stopped, lost in thought again.

“You know, Baldwin, you were right. When I told you about my interview with Dr. Ricard, Corinne’s therapist, and she hinted that Corinne had a lover. You hit the nail on the head about the baby not being Todd Wolff’s.”

358

J.T. Ellison

“What did she say exactly?”

Taylor grabbed her notebook, flipped to the pages where she’d written down her interview with Ricard.

“Here it is. ‘Instead of fighting, she acquiesced. Allowed herself to be used.’ I asked about Todd using her. She said, ‘By many people. Husband, family, siblings, lover. You’ll hit upon the truth soon enough, Lieutenant.’ Right there. Lover. She was helping Corinne deal with having an affair. Both Ricard and Katie Walberg, the OB/GYN, said Corinne was a serial monogamist. Maybe sleeping with two men at once was too much for her psyche.”

“Not sleeping with two at once. Caring about two at once. That was the problem.”

“You’re probably right. Maybe she was breaking it off with Henry and he killed her. We need to go see Mr. Anderson. Maybe he can shed some light on this.”

They stood.

“Bring your handcuffs,” Baldwin said.

“Oh, trust me. I intend to.”

Thirty-Seven

They caravanned over to 51st Avenue in northwestern Nashville, a small section of town aptly named the Nations. It was across Interstate 40 from Sylvan Park, the mirror image of the state street routes Taylor and Sam used to trace with their parents on pilgrimages to Bobby’s Dairy Dip.

The Nations was an upstanding industrial area which quickly gave way to squalor. It was another one of those bizarre Nashville disunions, a forgotten zone in the midst of splendor and plenty. A five-block area dedicated to crime. The police presence was heavy, trying to quell the rampant drug and sex trade. They were losing the battle.

Here in this little molecular oasis of misery, the residents operated in the land time forgot. Pay phones outnumbered cell phones and were still prevalent on every street corner, graffiti-painted and piss-filled. Teenagers wandered in baggy pants and cornrows, holding forty-ounce beer cans wrapped in brown paper bags. Crime, negligence, fear, all the horrors of life seeped 360

J.T. Ellison

in under the cracks of their doors in the middle of the night, carrying away their faith in humanity. These people didn’t just distrust the police, they didn’t acknowledge their existence. Justice was meted out behind gas stations and in dirty alleyways, business conducted under broken street lamps and in fetid, unair-conditioned living rooms.

It was the perfect place for a pedophile to hide. The left-hand turn onto Centennial Boulevard took Taylor into what could have been a war zone. Damage from a tornado that blew through Nashville in 1998 had destroyed this area, and not much had been done to return it to its previous semi-squalor. Two patrol cars slid by, both drivers put their hands out the window with their palms down—the universal cop signal for fair sailing. All is well, be careful out there. We have your back. Taylor signaled the same back to them. Within minutes, they pulled up to the address on record for Henry Anderson. It would be generous to call the domicile a house—it was little more than a shack, the roof sagging, the windows boarded with cardboard. They could see muffled bits of the Cumberland River beyond the property. The likes of Anderson wouldn’t be accepted in a neighborhood that had expectation. Anderson wasn’t living large. The money he was pulling in from the pornography obviously went toward something else, Taylor speculated. Drugs, perhaps. The house looked like it could double as a meth lab.

Baldwin had gotten quiet as they pulled up. She put the car into park and raised an eyebrow at him.

“This place is a dump,” he said. “Surely a criminal Judas Kiss

361

mastermind isn’t living in this hell. What’s he doing with his money?”

“Funny, you read my thoughts. Let’s go see.”

They exited the vehicle. Marcus got out of his Caprice. All three dressed in plainclothes, sunglasses on, looking like cops, it was no surprise that there wasn’t a single person in sight. Taylor knew they needed to show strength, not hesitate. She strode across the dust bowl that passed for a lawn in front of Anderson’s house and banged on the door.

“Police! Open up!”

Nothing.

She pounded her fist against the door again, three times, the sound echoing. Before she could hit the door a fourth time, it opened a crack. A woman peered from the bowels of the house. Taylor smelled a unique miasma of odors—fear and old garbage predominant among them.

The door opened a little wider. The woman—check that, the girl—who stood before them wasn’t smiling.

“Whaddaya want?”

Taylor could see the girl wore a uniform. She had a nametag on her left breast that read Waffle House, with Wendy written in crooked, childlike letters beneath the corporate logo. She wore a black golf visor with pinon buttons affixed to the sides. Her hair was skinned back from her face in a semblance of a ponytail, blond at the ends, the roots twisted and oily, nearly black. Her eyes were dull brown, the whites slightly red as if she hadn’t slept well or was indulging in some recreational drug.

“We’re looking for Henry Anderson.”

“Isn’t here.” She started to shut the door, but Taylor 362

J.T. Ellison

stuck the toe of her cowboy boot into the crack. She stifled a yelp as the door slammed onto her toe.

“We’d like to come in. Wendy? We’re with Metro homicide. We need to talk with Henry.”

The girl squinted at Taylor. Her teeth were showing, small and crooked, pointed inward as if they were recoiling in horror from the life their owner had chosen. Without a word, she walked away from the door. Taylor glanced over her shoulder at Baldwin. His hand was resting on his weapon, Marcus had his holster unsnapped and his service Glock an inch out of the leather. They nodded. Taylor pushed the door open with the toe of her boot and let it swing away. The inside of the house was stifling. A broken fan sat on a milk crate in front of a rump sprung couch, ashtrays and empty beer cans spilled over the edge of what Taylor assumed was a kitchen counter.

“Henry’s not here,” Wendy repeated, lighting a cigarette. She took a deep draw, blew the smoke out with a cough.

“Don’t you want to know why we want to speak with him?”

“Not my business. I rent from him. He don’t live here.”

Add slumlord to Anderson’s list of sins.

“Where does he live, Wendy?”

“Dunno.” She resumed smoking, standing warily five feet from Taylor. She held her left arm across her stomach. Taylor looked closer. The girl was slightly hunched over, and in the dim light, Taylor realized that standing was causing her pain. Coupled with the hunted, faraway look in the girl’s eyes, the remnants of a bruise fading from her check, Taylor was overcome with pity.

Judas Kiss

363

“Why don’t you sit down, Wendy. Tell us who hurt you.”

Something fired in the girl’s eyes, whether it was pride or fury, Taylor didn’t know.

“I’m fine,” she said carefully.

“You don’t look fine. Did you get kicked in the stomach?”