Hunters

  “You’re right. It can’t all be coincidence.”

  “Whether you call it vigilante justice or the work of a serial killer, someone is doing this on purpose.

  5

  Jennifer sat at the very back of the Greyhound bus clutching her phone in one hand, and a small bag that held the few meager possessions that she’d thrown together when Livi and Nora had taken her from her house. Nora had dropped her off on Shoreline, a few blocks from the bus station. Jennifer had turned on her phone and immediately called the detective handling her case to let him know that she was, in fact, not dead.

  To her ears, he had seemed at once relieved and disappointed. He was almost certainly relieved to find out that Cole had not gotten to her, but likely disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to put him away for life. Detective Jones told her that he would make arrangements to get Cole released, and then meet at the bus station to drive her home. He informed her that when he picked her up, he expected to hear how and why she had slipped past the officer watching her house, and where she had been for four days.

  When she reached Greyhound, she had turned her phone back off. She knew that the moment her brother heard about her resurrection, he would call her, dripping with feigned concern. She was in no mood. She settled back and silently rehearsed the story that she would tell Detective Jones.

  ***

  Martinez hitched up her gun belt and rested her left hip on Glade’s desk.

  He looked over the rim of his reading glasses and glared at her. “Well, who else would it be?”

  “What happened with Cole?” She asked seriously.

  “Can’t charge a guy with murder if the vic ain’t dead.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise.

  Still seated in his office chair, Detective Sherman pushed away from his desk propelling himself toward Glade’s desk. A foot from his destination the chair spun and started to tip toward Martinez. She jumped up and grabbed Sherman by the shoulders, righting him before he could fall over.

  He stopped flailing his arms and started laughing.

  “You’re an idiot,” Glade told him grumpily.

  Sherman winked at Martinez and said, “yeah, but now I know she loves me.”

  Detective Glade dropped his glasses on his stack of paperwork and stalked away from two of them.

  Martinez nodded toward the retreating figure, “shouldn’t we all be happy that Golden is alive?” We don’t get this kind of news too often in homicide.”

  “He’s happy that she’s alive,” Sherman assured her. “That’s him in a good mood.”

  “No, seriously,” she said.

  “Seriously,” the smile dropped from his face and then dropped his voice, “I thought he was going to cry when we got word. He’s pissed at himself for calling this one the other way. He thinks it diminishes his chances of making sergeant.”

  Martinez shook her head. She was sure that nothing would stop Glade from making sergeant. “What’s the whole story?”

  “According to Ms. Golden she got a call from a neighbor telling her that Cole was in her backyard. She panicked. She started to call for help and decided it would be faster just to get out of the house and run for the patrol car. When she got outside she couldn’t even tell if there was anyone in the car so she started running and didn’t stop.”

  “What about the blood?”

  Sherman scratched his stubbly chin. “When the neighbor called she was startled. When she reached for the phone, she whacked her forehead and bled everywhere.”

  “Has any of this been confirmed?”

  He shrugged. “Like what? Why would she make this up? Why would she leave and hang him halfway for her murder and then come back in time to save him from being charged?”

  “Which neighbor called? Which phone did they call?”

  Sherman shrugged again.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Corpus.”

  Martinez rubbed her head. Something about it didn’t make sense.

  “She was scared out of her wits and just wanted to get away where that scumbag couldn’t find her. When she heard that he’d been arrested for her murder she came back to clear things up.” He stared at her furrowed brow for a few seconds. “You don’t seem satisfied with the story.”

  “It just doesn’t add up.” She put her hands in the air, “maybe it’s just because I’m hearing it second or third hand. My shift’s over and I’m too tired to think about it.”

  Sherman started slowly propelling his chair back toward his own desk. “She’s not dead, so it’s not our case anymore. That’s for someone else to sort out.”

  “I guess they can’t use the murder charge to leverage a guilty plea on the rape.”

  “The other bad news,” Sherman paused the roll toward his desk, “he’s back out on the streets. And now he thinks she tried to set him up. I’m not so sure it was a good idea for her to come out of hiding.”

  ***

  Jen’s hand was shaking so violently she was afraid if she had to fire the Taser, she would somehow end up embedding the probes in her own body. She glanced through the peephole in her door and could see no one on her front step. She knew better than to open the door.

  For a few moments, she rested her forehead against the back of the door, closed her eyes and tried to calm her nerves. She decided that her best bet was to wait by the front window and watch for the patrol car that would be slowly rolling past her house sometime in the next half hour. When she saw the car, she would open the front door and wave to get the officer’s attention.

  Having decided on a course of action, she turned toward the window, and nearly jumped out of her skin. Malcolm was standing in the passageway between her kitchen and living area with his hands behind his back. He had a malevolent smile plastered across his face.

  With her hand shaking even harder than before, she pointed the Taser at him. “Get the fuck out of my house, Mac.” Though she articulated every syllable, her voice still sounded weak and wobbly to her own ears.

  “Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer,” he shook his head, “if you fire that thing and miss… I will kill you right now. If you hit me, I will kill you later. There is no way this ends where you get to live.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” She knew she sounded whiny.

  “You ruined my life. And now you tried, and failed, to set me up for your murder.”

  Instead of fear, rage surged through her body. “No, you pathetic asshole, I came back to clear you of my supposed murder.”

  He took a step toward her.

  “Do it, you son of a bitch.” She locked her arm and aimed the Taser at his center mass just like Nora had showed her. “I’ll fry you with this thing until you shit your pants, and then I’ll stab you to death while you’re wallowing in your own filth.”

  Malcolm froze. For just a split second, Jennifer saw fear in his eyes. But the fear was quickly wiped away by the return of the malevolent smile. “I’m going to enjoy killing you even more than I imagined.” He turned and walked through the kitchen and out her back door.

  After a few moments her legs gave way and she slid to the floor with her back still against the front door. She knew that if Malcolm walked back in at that moment, she would be powerless to stop him.

  6

  Glade sighed heavily as he walked into the room. “We got a body in a city park…”

  Sherman looked down at his steaming hot cup of coffee and shrugged. “Another one bites the dust,” he muttered under his breath. He left the coffee on his desk, not even bothering to try and finish it this time. He stood up and shrugged into his suit jacket. “Another repeat offender?”

  “No. Young female. Found just off the path…”

  “Shit! Sherman froze for a second. “It’s not Jennifer Golden, is it?”

  “No clothing, no purse, and no ID on the vic so far,” Glade said through clenched teeth.

  “Shit.”


  ***

  Martinez knew better. She was not involved in the case in any official capacity. She was out of her jurisdiction. She was out of her depth. She was most certainly out of her mind. And still, she kept on driving.

  She had known when she was poking around on the computer that this was none of her business. She had known that if she found anything Glade would absolutely forbid her to stick her nose into their case. And she was well aware that if she came up with anything, he would probably ignore it anyway. But she had found it. She found this one little thing that almost certainly wasn’t connected in any way. And she was even more certain that no one else was going to check this out.

  Only one person in the entire world knew where she would be on her day off. She had asked her friend, Judy, to send out the cavalry if she didn’t come back. But Judy was otherwise sworn to secrecy.

  Once she had passed through Poteet, she turned up the volume on her GPS and let it guide her to the middle of Atascosa County, which looked a whole lot like the middle of nowhere. Monica Martinez was a city girl. The middle of nowhere made her edgy under the best of circumstances.

  This was not the best of circumstances.

  She followed the GPS guidance to the bottom of a mostly gravel driveway, and pulled over to look at the number on the mailbox. It was a match. She surveyed her quiet surroundings. The perimeter of the property was lined with dense Red Tipped Photinia that had grown to nearly six feet in height. Martinez estimated that the house was set back from the road approximately forty yards.

  She had no desire to drive her personal vehicle up the long drive and find herself boxed in. But she wasn’t entirely sure that it would be safer to walk to the front door. She backed the car up parallel to the shrubbery, away from the mailbox and the driveway entrance, and turned off her the engine. She took the alarm fob off of her key ring and stashed the keys in the center console, slipping the fob into her jacket pocket. She sent Judy a text that said, making approach now.

  Martinez got out of the car and yanked at the lapels of her sueded cotton jacket and tried to make herself at least feel, if not look, more professional. She clipped her badge to her belt, checked her sidearm, and grabbed her notebook.

  She had memorized the plate number of the car she was looking for. But neither of the two cars visible in the driveway matched the make and model, much less the plates. She kept walking toward the front door, constantly scanning the area for any movement. When she got to the front door she took a deep breath and remembered that she could not be tentative. She had to knock like a cop. She had to speak with authority.

  The door opened on creaky, old hinges. The face of a young woman appeared through the screen. Martinez noticed that she kept the bulk of her body behind the door. “Yes?” She asked with a furrowed brow.

  Martinez flipped open the cover of her steno pad and pretended to read the name she had already committed to memory. “I’m looking for Nora Carrasco.”

  The girl shook her head. “Hold on.” She shut the door.

  Martinez took a step back and rested the heel of her hand on the butt of her gun. While she waited she scanned the windows and checked her peripheral vision for any movement. She was about to turn and look toward the street when the door groaned its way back open.

  The woman opened the door fully, lacking the caution that the previous girl had displayed. “Nora’s out of town. What can I do for you?”

  “And you are?”

  “You first.”

  Martinez pulled her jacket aside briefly so that the woman could see her badge. “I’m with SAPD. A car registered to Ms. Carrasco was ticketed several nights ago, and I just have a couple of questions for her regarding her activities that evening.”

  The woman reached out and unlatched the screen. She pushed open the door, but instead of inviting Monica inside, she stepped outside onto the porch. “Nora has been out of town for a couple of weeks. I’m her sister in law, Olivia Carrasco, and it was me that got the ticket.”

  Martinez nodded and scribbled her name in the notebook. “So, you’re married to Nora’s brother?”

  She nodded, “widowed, actually.”

  Martinez looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said and closed the notebook.

  Olivia smiled. “Just how badly did I park that SAPD had to send someone all the way out here to talk to me about it?”

  Martinez laughed and shook her head. “Your parking isn’t at issue as long as you pay the ticket. Unfortunately, there was a homicide near the park, about two blocks from where you parked.”

  Olivia paled.

  Martinez pressed on. “We had to include you in our canvass of the area, in the case that you may have witnessed anything.”

  “I-I wasn’t even in the park. I would have told someone if…”

  Martinez motioned to the chairs in front of the picture window. “Perhaps we should sit.”

  Olivia nodded.

  “You may have seen something, or someone, and not even realized at the time that it was significant.”

  Olivia nodded again.

  “Since you got a parking ticket, it should be a night that stands out in your memory more than the average night. I’d like to ask you to think through the events of the evening. Focus on the time you spent in or around the neighborhood. Did you see anyone walking, jogging, driving…?”

  Olivia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After a few moments she said, “I was having dinner with friends that night.” She stopped and drew in what sounded like a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I’m a little shaken up. I can’t really focus.” She stood up. “Why don’t you give me your card. After I calm down, I can try again, and see if I recall anything useful. I’ll call you so you don’t have to drive all the way back out here.”

  Martinez stood up and slid a business card out of her jacket pocket. “This is my mobile number,” she pointed, “call me day or night when you’re ready to talk about this.”

  Olivia took the card and shook her hand.

  Even though she heard the door close as she had stepped off the porch, Martinez could feel the eyes on her, watching her from somewhere inside the house, as she made her way down the drive back to her car.

  When she got back to Highway 16, she pressed the button on her ear piece and instructed the phone to call Judy.

  “You’re alive. How did it go?”

  “Everything about my visit seemed perfectly normal and unrelated to the crime. But the way she gave me the brush off… It was so smooth that it unsettled me.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t just your overly suspicious cop nature?”

  “Maybe,” she conceded. “I’m shaking.” She held up her free hand and watched it tremble. “Can we meet for dinner and drinks? I really need a little of one and a lot of the other.”

  “Go home,” Judy said, “I’ll come and get you and you can tell me all about it.”

  ***

  Martinez hitched up her gun belt and sat on the edge of Sherman’s desk. “So how’s the latest case going?”

  “It’s a strange one,” Glade growled from behind his own desk.

  Martinez looked over at him with surprise. She never imagined he’d be the one to fill her in on the details. “How so?”

  He smirked. “You didn’t show up at our crime scene.”

  “It was my day off,” she protested.

  “Never stopped you before.”

  “That’s true,” Sherman said.

  “Doug?” She elbowed him. “Since when do you take his side?”

  He feigned a pout. “You didn’t show up yesterday. I got lonely. Seriously, where were you? It had to be a hot date to keep you from our crime scene.”

  “Just catching up with a friend.”

  “A girl friend?” He raised his eyebrows.

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have any women in your life that you’re just friends with?”

  “Ma
rtinez, you’re the only woman in my life.”

  “That’s just sad, Doug. Just sad.”

  The two of them were spared Glade’s retort when his phone rang.

  Martinez leaned toward Sherman. “My shift’s about to start. I have to hit the streets pretty soon, so I don’t have much time. What’s the story on this latest body in the park?”

  “It’s not a story for the faint of heart. When I found out it wasn’t one of our serial abusers, and that it was a young woman, I immediately feared it was Jennifer Golden. Thankfully, it’s not her. But whoever killed this girl is a sick fuck.”

  Glade hung up and rose to his feet in one swift, angry motion. “You two wrap up your weird, pointless flirtation.” He motioned to Sherman. “We have a notification to make.”

  “We have an ID?”

  “College student. Let’s go. I’ll fill you in on the way.” He stalked toward the doorway with Sherman hustling to catch up to him. Glade stopped so abruptly that his partner nearly crashed into him. “You,” he pointed at Martinez, “be careful out there.”

  ***

  Livi greeted Nora in the driveway. “We might have a problem.”

  Nora slung her duffel bag over her shoulder. “So much for getting away for a few days. One of our charges causing trouble?”

  “Nope. I screwed up. Remember the parking ticket in Olmos Park?”

  “Yeah. It’s not like you to make that kind of mistake.”

  Livi sighed deeply. “I know. And yesterday there was a San Antonio cop on our doorstep wanting to know if I had seen anything suspicious since I had been in the neighborhood.”

  Nora rubbed the back of her neck and thought about this unfortunate development. “It might be nothing. What did you tell him?”

  “Her,” she corrected. “I said the news had me shaken up and I couldn’t think about it right then. I bought myself a little time so I could talk to you about it first.”

  “First things, first,” Nora said, “you need to curtail your activities for the time being. And second,” she started toward the house, “tell me about this cop. What’s she like?”