scarlet city - chapter three - angels with dirty faces
Denny squats next to the sheet-covered body on the bed. With a deep breath, knowing and not liking what he’s going to find, he lifts a corner of the sheet. “Ugh,” he scrunches up his nose. He could smell it from the hallway, but it’s even worse under the sheet. He drops the white fabric down again and stands up. “That’s definitely April. How long’s she been dead?”
Arizona looks up from her clipboard, snaps her gum and offers Denny a piece from the pack in her pocket. “I’d say about a week. How long’s she been missing?”
Denny takes a piece of the peppermint gum. It helps. “She hasn’t; no one called it in. Neighbor called the super about the smell.” He casts his eyes to the crowd that’s gathered in the hallway. “How’d she die?” Her body’s so bloated and discolored, that he can’t tell.
“Looks like strangulation. I don’t know how, but,” she jerks her thumb toward the nightstand where a single nylon stocking lies over the lamp, “that’s my guess.”
Exhaling sharply, he picks up the nylon. “Different from the others,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.
“Looks like she fought back,” Arizona says, pointing to blood underneath April’s fingernails, “and one of your guys found the knife by the door.” She shrugs.
Denny chuckles to himself. “April would fight back. Too bad she runs without a pimp, we could find out who she was with the few nights before she died.”
“Who the hell freelances in this town?” Sensing that Denny’s about to blame himself for not doing more, Arizona puts her clipboard down on the nightstand and reaches across the twin bed to put a hand on his arm. “Look. You’ve got nothing on this guy and it’s not for lack of trying. Whoever he is, he’s good. This is not your fault.”
Denny offers her a smile before pulling his arm away. “Yeah.”
“Enough.”
Burke tests his jaw and squints up at Mark cracking his knuckles as he steps aside. He’s lost track of how long he’s been in this room, but he suspects it’s only a few hours though it feels like much longer. The legs of the chair he’s tied to are uneven and the hideous yellow tile on the floor makes him want to vomit, though that may just be the pain.
Addison walks into view. “Sorry about all this,” she says, not sounding apologetic at all.
He spits blood onto the floor. It barely misses her shoe.
With a scornful look at the blood on the floor, Addison takes a step to the side. “Don’t blame Miranda. She was just doing what I asked of her. Her son is attending the city’s best preschool, did she tell you that?” At his silence, Addison smiles. “No, of course not. You’d start wondering how she could afford that and, well, that’s just impolite among friends.”
“Why am I here?” Burke asks, though he has his suspicions.
She straightens. “You were asking about Naomi Bennett. Miranda said you gave her forty dollars for the potential tip. I know what a detective makes, Burke. You had to think you were going to get something good to drop that kind of cash. Why would a detective with such respect for the law and the order it brings be asking about the assistant district attorney in a place like the Archfield?”
Burke figures he doesn’t have anything to lose by telling the truth. “Thought she was connected to you.” If he’s right, he’ll have another piece to fit with the others. If he’s wrong, well, he’ll have some great bruises and cuts to show off to Duquette.
Addison laughs a full-throated, hearty laugh. It echoes off the concrete walls. “Naomi Bennett having anything to do with me. That’s perfect.”
Mark and Alex laugh with her, though aren’t quite as amused as she is.
“I really ought to put forty dollars back in your pocket because that,” she gestures aimlessly, “is truly the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while. And I own a comedy club.” She calms and her face molds into a mask of severity in an instant. “No, Detective Burke. Naomi Bennett is not at all working for me. In fact, I think she might get more gratification out of seeing me behind bars than your Chief Webber.”
“Then why did she give your case to Avery?” Burke can’t help the question; it slips out of his mouth before he has a chance to grab onto it. He blames delusion from the pain.
Addison snorts. “She didn’t give it to Avery, Altman and Wallace forced her off the case. O’Malley had just linked her to me back in New York, dug up some dirt on us being friends. Your judges thought it would be a conflict of interest. Believe me, Burke. This,” she gestures to him tied up in the chair, “could’ve been avoided if you’d done your homework.” She steps aside and nods to Mark.
He cracks his knuckles.
Denny frowns at the spread of photos and case details in front of him. None of it makes sense, none of it matches up. He closes his eyes and leans as far back in his chair as he dares. He’s worked hard cases before, they all have, but there’s always something to tie it all together; a common thread, a clue left behind, a witness.
He looks at the first case file again: Sydney Heron. At the scene, they’d all assumed it was a suicide; the cuts on her wrist and position in the tub fit the profile, and everyone they’d talked to said she’d seemed kind of down lately. But Robbins had shook her head and pointed out strangulation marks around Heron’s neck, barely visible against the purple and bloated skin, and later showed him x-rays displaying broken bones in the woman’s neck.
He frowns at the file. Strangulation can be a first time method of killing, but it’s awfully personal. So is positioning the body.
Denny flips to a more recent case, Sadie Harris. She wasn’t the first girl to have her throat slit - that dubious honor went to Olivia Harper, the third girl to die - but she is the reason they’ve decided not to release the common cause of death to the press. As the fifth to die, and the third to do so bleeding from the jugular, they officially named it a pattern.
The last thing they need is for every girl and pimp in the city to start packing heat and aiming it at every john who looks like he might have a knife in his back pocket.
Burke squints through his left eye - the right one swollen shut - and manages to focus on the clock on the wall. 11:37. He’s not sure if that’s morning or night, or even how many 11:37s have passed since he’s been here.
Heels click on the tile floor.
“Don’t pretend to be asleep, Burke,” Montgomery’s sultry voice wafts through the dimly-lit room as she walks out of the shadows; light from the room’s single lamp glints off her red hair. “I liked O’Malley,” she says, curling her fingers around the back of a chair hidden in the corner. She sets the chair in front of him, demurely crossing her legs. “He wasn’t all that savvy until the very end, and that was only because Hunt got involved. God rest their souls,” she says unconvincingly.
“Here’s the deal,” she says, resting her arm on the back of the chair. “You’re going to back off and keep your nose in your own business. You’re going to report to Webber that you can’t find anything. And you’re going to go back to investigating petty larceny and the occasional arson. Because, Preston,” his name rolls off her tongue like whiskey, “we have eyes on your girl.”
“Leave her out of this!” Burke manages to spit out. Everything hurts.
Addison merely chuckles and stands up, smoothing her skirt out as she steps closer to Burke. “Sweet dreams,” she whispers, pressing a damp cloth over his mouth and nose.
Burke wakes up as he hits the ground, rolling a few feet until he stops. He blinks against the bright light and hears a car speed off, tires squealing against the pavement. He squints upward and the lights of the hospital come into focus. It’s night.
“Burke?” Shepherd’s voice echoes loudly from the alley behind him. He quickly checks Burke for immediate injuries and then helps him stagger upward, placing a supporting arm around Burke’s waist as he helps the other man inside to the ER. “What the hell happened to you?”
Groaning, Burke settles onto the cot and lies back down. He watches as Shepherd washes blood off his hands and gloves up. “Montgomery,” he says. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday,” Derek says. “Well, Wednesday now. Lie still.”
Burke tries to be quiet while Shepherd cleans up his injuries, but things hurt too much to avoid letting out a hiss once in a while. At least he’s only been gone a day. “Have I missed anything?” He asks, knowing full well that Shepherd probably can’t tell him what he wants to know.
“It’s nothing serious,” Shepherd says, having checked all of Burke’s injuries, “but you’re gonna hurt bad for a few days.” He turns to collect a needle and thread to start suturing a particularly nasty cut over Burke’s eye. “There’s another dead girl,” he says, “hold still. April something.”
“Kepner?” Burke keeps his eyes closed despite his urge to look. He knows better than to try to watch while someone’s sewing his face back together.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
He’s not glad she’s gone, but it is one less pain in the ass he has to deal with. “How’d she die?”
“Strangled. Hold still.”
“Bastard,” Burke says, though any bite behind the curse is defeated by Shepherd pulling tightly on the sutures.
“Yeah. You guys gonna knock this off or what?” Shepherd pats Burke on the shoulder. “All done.”
Burke sits up and gingerly pulls off his shirt so Shepherd can get a look and see if any ribs are broken. “We’re trying.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Cristina accuses the moment her apartment door opens, her hand poised on her hip. She’s used to being stood up, but not by Burke. She’d left the restaurant after sitting alone, waiting for an hour; she spent the next day grumbling at customers. She opens her mouth to yell even further, but he steps into the apartment enough that the lamplight brings his injuries into sharp focus and she gasps. “What happened to you?”
Burke cautiously steps completely into her apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him. He hasn’t yet taken any of the painkillers Shepherd gave him for fear that they’d turn him completely fuzzy and unable to get here, or at least unable to defend himself should the man who’s been tailing him for the past few days get any ideas to take advantage of him. Things are starting to hurt. Badly. He hesitates for a moment, on the verge of telling Cristina exactly what happened to him and who’s responsible for it, but Addison’s warning echoes in his mind and he decides against it. The less Cristina knows, the safer she’ll be. “Misunderstanding with a suspect,” he says. It’s close enough to the truth.
Cristina scoffs, not believing him for a moment. It could very well be a misunderstanding with a suspect, but no way does simple confusion with an average criminal result in the battered, bruised and bloody body she sees in front of her. Shepherd cleaned him up well enough to stitch him back together, but Burke’s in need of a hot bath, the drugs he has in his pocket, and a meal. Not necessarily in that order.
“Come on,” she gestures, leading him into the bathroom. She starts a bath, making sure the water’s just this side of scalding hot, and motions that he should peel off his clothes and drop them in the corner. “In,” she says once the tub is full and he’s standing in front of her.
Gingerly, Burke lowers himself into the tub. Steam rises from the water’s surface and he hisses as his cuts protest against being submerged. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall. He’ll start trying to clean himself in a moment, but for now he just wants to forget that the last twenty-four hours ever happened. Hearing movement, he opens one eye just in time to catch Cristina gathering up his discarded clothing and disappearing out the bathroom door. He exhales sharply, winces, and slides deeper into the tub until his back is against the bottom and his head is fully under water. He comes up only when he needs air.
Cristina sets the contents of his pants and jacket pockets - keys, wallet, spare change, bottle of painkillers, receipt from the Archfield - on the kitchen table and dumps every article of clothing except his shoes into the trash. Everything’s probably salvageable, but bloodstains are a bitch to get out and she’s not at all interested in trying. He has a spare set of clothing at her place anyway.
She pours a finger of scotch into a glass and finishes it in two swallows. Luckily, there’s food in her apartment and she quickly pulls together a sandwich for him. Dropping two pills onto the plate, she carries it and another glass of scotch into the bathroom for him.
She hopes he’s not too injured. Giving him a bath is not something that’s on her girlfriend résumé.
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you, Erica,” Burke says, mustering as much sincerity as he can. He’s nursing two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a black eye and knows that he’d be well within his rights to call up the Chief and take the day off, but he’d go stir crazy in his apartment all day and Cristina won’t let him near the bar during business hours. He’d report the assault, if all three of them wouldn’t have convenient alibis.
They step out of the elevator and Burke carefully makes his way to his desk to drop off his coat and hat before getting a cup of coffee. Shepherd said he could remove the sling in two days and for now he has to do things one-handed.
“This is my area of expertise,” Denny jokes, taking over and pouring a cup of fresh coffee for Burke. He’s been on the phone since four in the morning, cold calling precincts across the country - starting with the East Coast, trying to get detectives on the line before they get too busy in other things for the day - for any information or cases similar to his. It’s the third pot of coffee he’s made today.
Burke chuckles. “I won’t make a habit of it. Anything new?”
Denny sighs and shakes his head. “Latest victim is April Kepner. Strangled.” He holds up a plastic bag. “Robbins thinks she fought back, made him drop the knife. Left it there, but it’s clean.”
Burke exhales sharply; in the haze of painkillers, he’d forgotten that Shepherd had told him about April. He hadn’t known any of the other victims personally, but he’d certainly spent enough time listening to Kepner’s antagonizing taunts in the past few months. “And there are no leads on this guy,” he muses.
“Brick walls, mostly. You run into anything in your New York research that might help with this?”
“I thought we said they weren’t connected to Montgomery.”
“I’ve got nothing. I’ll take a healthy hunch at this point.”
“Let me check.”
Coffee steadily in hand, Burke settles in at his desk. The Chief took all his other cases away from him, so Montgomery is the only thing he has to work on. But he has several painful reminders of her and would rather not sink into her file first thing in the morning. He digs the bottle of painkillers out of his coat pocket and pops open the cap. He tips the bottle and two white pills fall onto his desk. A rare beam of sunlight shines on the label, highlighting Shepherd written on the prescription.
He blinks at it.
Chasing the pills with a swig of coffee, he stands up and gestures for Duquette to follow him into the small interview room, still covered in neatly-organized piles.
“New York had a similar problem,” Burke says, holding up a finger as he thinks once Duquette has shut the door behind them. “Dead prostitutes, nothing linking them together, most of them strangled or with their throats slit. Shepherd’s kid sister, Amelia, was the detective on the case. Her notes are…” he trails off, remembering, “there,” he points at a pile.
Denny nods. “Let’s get started.”
Addison visibly clenches her jaw as she kneels down next to the body, settling her weight in her heels. She catches her dress with one hand so it doesn’t trail in the pool of congealing blood; her shoes are a lost cause, but her entire outfit doesn’t have to be. “Her john checks out?” She looks up at Alex.
He nods. “Hungover as a sailor on leave. No way he did this.”
She exhales sharply and reaches out, gently closing the eyelids of the dead woman. She’s dealt with enough cops to know she’s going to get an earful for trekking through the blood and generally touching things, but she also knows they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to blame this on her.
She wouldn’t kill one of her own.
After ensuring there isn’t any blood on her hands, she braces her palms against her knees and stands up.
“Let’s take a trip downtown.”
“Richard.”
The silky smooth voice causes Webber to slowly look up from the report currently open on his desk. The sun’s just about to set, peeking through the ineffective blinds covering the windows in his stuffy office. Dust particles float through the slotted shadows and he blinks several times to clear his vision, hoping the woman standing in his office door is just a hallucination.
She isn’t.
“Ms. Montgomery,” he says evenly, his face a mask of stony calm. One doesn’t make it to the rank of Police Chief without knowing how to cover one’s true feelings. In the case of Webber, confusion and near panic.
“Please,” she says, voice carrying a sultry air to it as she slides into his office, shutting the door behind her, and taking a seat in the uncomfortable chair facing him, “call me Addison.”
Webber leans back in his chair, leather creaking in protest against the motion, and steeples his fingers underneath his chin. “I’d prefer Ms. Montgomery if you don’t mind.” He doesn’t care if she does mind; he is not on a first-name basis with her no matter what she might like to think. If he weren’t concerned that it might land him in the Sound with his feet encased in concrete, he’d insist that she address him by his title. “What can the Seattle Police Department do for you this fine afternoon?”
Addison crosses her legs and settles her purse on her lap. “One of my girls is dead. Violet Turner. I took the liberty of informing Detective Duquette and Doctor Robbins. I believe they’re on their way to her apartment now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Richard, you know better than anyone that I know everything that happens in this town. But I don’t know who this man is. My girls were scared before, they are terrified now. He needs to be caught.”
“Ms. Montgomery, I assure you. We’re working -”
“Not hard enough,” she silences his empty platitudes.
Her face is half-cast in shadow but Webber can tell that she’s furious, more than her tone lets on. “Ms. Montgomery, you may think that yours is the only…business of consequence in this city.” He opens his mouth to say more, but the way she leans forward in her chair causes him to silence. For once in his life, he isn’t distracted by the obvious cleavage in front of him.
“I’ll repeat, because this does not seem to sink in with you or your detectives outside. I don’t know who this monster is. That alone should terrify you.” She leans back and stands up and if there was a threat hidden in her words, it’s gone now. “If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.”
Webber nods. “Of course.” He doubts very much he will need her assistance, and his detectives already know that if they use her in any way that it had better not make it into an official report.
“Okay people, listen up,” Webber says, silencing the murmurs in his precinct. He knows everyone in the room knows of the most recent death and what it means. He also knows that they’re all gossiping about what it meant to have Addison Montgomery in his office. Even Burke. Webber hadn’t missed the way Sloan had smiled at Burke on his way out; if the detective doesn’t want to press charges, that’s his business.
“Is it true?”
Webber controls his urge to roll his eyes. At this point, he’s sure that the news that one of Montgomery’s girls is the newest dead has transformed into something only marginally resembling the truth.
He’s unwilling to give anyone the indication that what he’s about to say has anything to do with Montgomery herself. “As of this morning, he’s up to nine. That is nine dead women in the past three months. You are all pulled from whatever cases you are currently working on. If it’s not going to trial, put it aside. We need all hands on deck for this. We are not letting him get to double digits.”
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