Walk the Wire Page 5

  “Well, since we were called up, we know there was something else going on with her,” observed Jamison.

  Decker said, “The killer might have dumped the body right before it was found.”

  Jamison and Kelly glanced sharply at Decker and his abrupt segue, but then Kelly nodded. “I thought about that, too. A body lying out there in the open? Well, you wouldn’t expect to see it in such good shape with all the critters we have up here.” He looked at Jamison. “But to kill someone and then cut up the body like that? That’s pretty damn perverted.”

  “We don’t usually hunt anybody who’s not,” noted Decker.

  FOLLOWING KELLY’S DIRECTIONS, Jamison parked at the curb in front of a four-story brick run-down building that was in an area where no construction cranes and work crews had come to roost. Yet.

  They climbed out, and Kelly led them quickly inside because the wind had picked up to a nasty howl and it had started to rain as well.

  The landlady’s conjoined apartment and office were on the first floor just off the front entrance. The apartment’s walls were painted a faded green, and the furnishings were old and frayed and looked straight out of the seventies. But the TV parked on one wall was a sixty-inch curved Samsung 4K without a set of rabbit ears in sight.

  The landlady’s name was Ida Simms. She was in her seventies, with thinning gray hair tied back in a severe bun. The woman was nearly as wide as she was tall. She greeted them politely, though Decker noted the tremble in her voice and the crumpled tissue clutched in her hand. She had on a large burgundy T-shirt and faded corduroy pants with pale green Crocs below.

  They sat in her small front room after declining Simms’s offer of coffee.

  She slumped back in her faded recliner and gazed around at them. “Irene, dead? I . . . I can’t believe it.” She shot Decker a terrified look. “And the FBI called in on top of it? I feel like I’m in a movie.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable,” said Jamison kindly. “We’re just here to ask you some questions.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever I can if it will help you catch whoever did this,” the woman said earnestly. She blew her nose with authority into the tissue.

  “When did she move in here?” asked Decker.

  “About a month ago.”

  “Do you know where she lived before that?”

  “I think at the Dawson Towers complex. It’s about a mile from here. Nicer part of town. Pretty luxurious.”

  “Dawson?” said Decker. “Like in Caroline Dawson?”

  “Yes. She has a condo there, I believe. And her father, Hugh, owns the Towers, along with about three-quarters of the businesses in London. This building here is one of the few he doesn’t own. Probably wouldn’t make enough money for him,” she added dismissively.

  “So he’s the local business tycoon?” said Jamison.

  “But a man named Stuart McClellan is even richer.”

  “How so?” asked Decker.

  Kelly answered. “He owns pretty much all of the oil and gas fracking operations in this area.”

  “So do the two men get along?” asked Jamison.

  It was Kelly again who answered. “They do business together. But I wouldn’t call them best friends.”

  Simms said huffily. “They’re men, and rich men to boot, which means they’re in a lifelong pissing contest—pardon my French—to see who’s the bigger dog in the fight.” She shook her head. “Boys never really grow up, don’t care how much cash they have.”

  “Did you know Ms. Cramer very well?” asked Jamison.

  Simms said, “I guess as well as anyone in the building. She worked as a teacher out at the Brothers’ school.”

  “So we heard. What can you tell us about her?”

  “She was quiet. Kept to herself. I mean she was an attractive young woman, but she never had anyone over to her place, least that I know of.”

  “Why’d she move here from Dawson Towers? Is it cheaper here?”

  “Oh, yes, much cheaper. The Towers is far nicer, like I said. But our rooms are clean and we include trash service and cable TV.”

  “Did you ever see her go out at night?”

  “No. I get up very early and go to bed the same. If it was after nine o’clock I wouldn’t see her leaving.”

  Jamison said, “Did she ever talk about her personal history? How she came to be here?”

  Simms sat back and thought about this for a few moments. “Come to think, not really. For some reason I had the feeling that she was from the West Coast. But that’s just a guess.”

  Decker looked out the window, where the rain was continuing to pour down. “Did she say why she had come to London in the first place? Did she have a job lined up?”

  “Not that she ever said, no. But she did work at the Brothers’ as the teacher, like I said. So maybe that’s what brought her up here.”

  Jamison added, “Or was she coming here to be with someone? Maybe followed a boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” asked Kelly.

  Simms looked pensive once more. “I believe it was a week ago today.”

  Decker glanced at Kelly. “That tightens the coroner’s outside TOD from ten days to five, since her body was found two days ago.”

  “But weren’t you concerned that you hadn’t seen her for a week?” asked Jamison.

  “No, because she said she was going on a little vacation.”

  “Vacation where?” asked Jamison, shooting a glance at Kelly, who looked equally surprised by this revelation.

  “She didn’t tell me.”

  “She didn’t say if she was meeting someone or traveling with them?” interjected Kelly.

  “No, again, we didn’t really discuss it.”

  “Did she have any friends who lived here?” asked Jamison.

  “Not that she mentioned to me.”

  “Not to sound like a cliché, Ida,” said Kelly, “but have you seen any strangers lurking around? Or did Irene mention she was having a problem with anyone?”

  “No, nothing like that,” replied Simms, looking alarmed. “This is a good town. Safe for the most part. Oh, I know some of those bozos lose their tempers and get in fights and somebody ends up dead, but, well, people don’t go around murdering each other on purpose.”

  “Until now,” said Decker. “I think it’s time we went over her room.”

  * * *

  The apartment was neat, perhaps too much so, thought Decker. The furnishings looked like they had come with the apartment, a fact that Simms had confirmed for them. The tiny kitchen was utilitarian and appeared as though it had never been used. The bedroom held a bed and not much else. There were no books, photos, or mementos. No desktop or laptop computer. And no power cords showing she had such devices.

  Decker eyed Kelly. “Simms said that she never saw Cramer go out at night, presumably because she went to bed too early.”

  “She would have hit the streets long after Simms was in bed.”

  “Simms also said that she wasn’t aware of Cramer’s having any friends in the building. But she could be wrong about that, too,” remarked Jamison.

  Kelly said, “But would she bring her clients back here or sleep with someone in her own building? The jig would be up.”

  Decker shook his head. “But what if she just had someone over for consensual sex?”

  Kelly looked intrigued. “Maybe she had a boyfriend that Simms didn’t know about.”

  “She ever mention anyone like that to you?” asked Jamison.

  He shook his head. “But it’s not like she would have.”

  Decker said, “Has this place been dusted for prints?”

  “No, because it wasn’t the crime scene.”

  “It needs to be done,” said Decker sharply.

  “We’ve got one tech, and he rides the circuit for a few other police forces around the area. I’ll get him to make this a priority for us.”

  Decker said, “
What about her car? I didn’t see a Honda parked on the street.”

  “We’ve got a BOLO out on it, but nothing yet.”

  “If she was working through a website she probably had a laptop. And she had to have a phone,” said Jamison.

  “I’m sure she did but we haven’t found either one,” replied Kelly.

  “Where would she typically meet up with the men? You mentioned you met her at a flophouse?”

  “Yeah. We can go there next.”

  Decker said, “And we’ll need to talk to the Brothers, obviously.”

  “I don’t believe they could have had anything to do with this. They’re a pacifist group.”

  “Pacifists or not, it only takes one bad apple in the bunch. And there’s almost always one bad apple in every bunch.”

  “I TAKE IT THIS is the really, really seedy side of town,” said Jamison as they pulled up in front of a dilapidated, wooden-clad three-story building that looked around a century old. It was about a quarter of a mile from Cramer’s apartment, but in an even less desirable part of London.

  “You could say that.”

  “Who owns the building?” asked Decker.

  “Hugh Dawson, or one of his companies. In fact, like Ida Simms mentioned, he owns pretty much all of London, the good and bad parts.”

  The man at the front desk was about forty and looked like he would rather be anywhere else on earth than where he currently was. He put down his iPhone, took off his black rimmed specs, wiped them on the sleeve of his shirt, and replaced them as they strode up to him. He barely glanced at Decker or Jamison.

  “Hi, Joe,” said the man, nodding at Kelly with a wary look.

  “Ernie, these folks are with the FBI out of Washington,” replied Kelly, indicating Decker and Jamison.

  Ernie’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like an out-of-whack elevator car.

  “Okay,” he said suspiciously. “Never met any FBI agents before. You look pretty normal. Thought you’d be scarier.”

  “We can be very scary, if the situation calls for it,” said Jamison brightly.

  “We want to ask you some questions and have a look around,” said Kelly. “I’m sure you have no problem with that, right?”

  “Yeah, I do. What kind of questions? And I don’t know if you can look around without a warrant.”

  Kelly leaned in close to Ernie. “You surprise me, Ernie. That doesn’t sound too helpful or friendly.”

  “I’m not paid to be either one.”

  “Fact is, we’re investigating a murder.”

  “Who got killed?”

  “You would probably know her as Mindy.”

  Ernie’s features screwed up tight. “Mindy? I don’t know nobody by that name. Would’ve remembered that one.”

  “Sure you do, Ernie,” said Kelly. “I met her here one night. You saw me with her and I saw you.”

  Ernie shook his head. “Your memory must be a lot better than mine.”

  Kelly glanced past him. “What do we have here? An ex-con drug dealer with a bottle of pills on that shelf back there that doesn’t look like prescription drugs? That would be a serious violation of your parole. You don’t want to go back inside, do you?”

  Ernie glanced nervously at the bottle. “Those ain’t mine. Just holding ’em for a buddy.”

  “You have no objection to me seeing what they are.” Kelly started to walk behind the reception desk to get the bottle.

  “Okay, I know Mindy,” he blurted out. “Are we done here?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I forget.”

  Kelly started to reach for the pill bottle.

  “Okay, okay, it was last week.”

  “Be more precise than that,” said Decker.

  Ernie rubbed his lower lip and did the calculation in head. “Six days ago.”

  Decker looked at Kelly. “Now our TOD is down to four days. That alone made it worth talking to this guy.”

  “Did you speak with her?” asked Kelly.

  “No.”

  “Was she with anyone?” interjected Jamison.

  “She doesn’t come here unless she’s with someone,” replied Ernie flatly. “That’s sort of the point of the, um, line of work she was in.”

  “The guy’s name?” asked Kelly.

  “They don’t tell me. They pay me cash and they get the room. And I don’t ask no questions and nobody shows ID.”

  “Description, then,” demanded Decker.

  “Short, muscular, blond, young, stupid, horny.”

  “Male or female?” asked Jamison.

  “Are you serious?” Ernie snapped. “It was a guy.”

  “Fracker?” asked Kelly.

  “He looked it. Hands all chewed up and skin sunburnt and a wallet full of cash nearly as big as he was.”

  “How long were they here?” asked Decker.

  “About forty-five minutes. They usually all take about that much time. I don’t imagine there’s much chitchat that goes on.”

  “Did they leave together or separate?” asked Decker.

  “Guy left first, then Mindy.”

  “How’d the guy seem?”

  “How do you think? He was smiling ear to ear with a spring in his step. Hell, it was like he’d won the lottery or something.”

  “She seem okay?” asked Kelly.

  “She didn’t seem not okay.”

  “Be more specific,” prompted Jamison.

  “Well, she seemed happy, actually. Maybe the sex was good, I don’t know.”

  Jamison said, “You must have other women come in here with men, to . . . have a good time.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you mean,” blustered Ernie.

  “We’re not looking to bust you over this,” said Jamison. “I just want to know was Mindy different from the other ladies?”

  Decker glanced at her and then stared at Ernie, awaiting his answer.

  “Different how?”

  “I think you know how,” said Jamison.

  Ernie let out a long breath. “Look, the other gals come down still counting their money, if they do take cash. Some insist on Venmo because it’s safer. But it’s all business with them. It’s not like they enjoy getting strangers off over and over.”

  “Very perceptive of you. And Mindy?”

  “Well, she . . . she didn’t seem that way. Never saw her with any money, in fact. And she wasn’t like the other gals. Over half of them are strung out all the time. To my eye, I doubt the lady ever popped a pill or even smoked a joint.”

  “Well, you’re the expert on that, Ernie,” noted Kelly.

  “Would you recognize this guy again if you saw him?” asked Jamison.

  “Doubtful. They all look the same to me. And I see enough of them.”

  Kelly eyed the stairs. “Take us to the room they were using.”

  “Okay, but there have been other people in there since then.”

  Ernie grabbed a key from a box on the front desk and led them up a flight of steps to the top floor and then down the hall. He unlocked the door and motioned them in. “Have at it.”

  He left them there and scurried back down the stairs like a rat abandoning a ship.

  Decker wasn’t even sure the man would still be there when they came back down.

  “THIS IS BEYOND DISGUSTING,” observed Jamison. “Do they even clean these rooms?”

  The carpet was tattered and stained. The small bed was unmade. The smell in the air was fuggy and foul. The paint on the walls was chipped and peeling. The few bits of other furniture looked decades old and badly in need of repair. There was a single bare light bulb clinging to the ceiling like a barnacle on a ship’s hull.

  Jamison’s gaze dropped to the floor, where sat an opened plastic condom package.

  “Okay, I’m getting a tetanus booster as soon as we get out of here.”

  Decker was walking around the room taking everything in. His observations were being placed on mental slides and uploaded to th
e cloud that constituted his largely infallible memory. “We’ll at least need to check all the prints here and try to do an elimination run.”

  Kelly said, “Well, from what Ernie told us, it seems like Cramer and the young buck had sex that night.”

  “Yeah, it does,” said Jamison. “And maybe the guy was so happy because she didn’t charge him for it.”

  “And Ernie said Cramer was happy, too. I wonder why?”

  Decker said, “We have to retrace her steps, every minute of every day. Now, Simms told us that Cramer was planning to go on a trip.” He eyed Kelly. “It’s early September, so I assume school has just started. Unless the Brothers have a different schedule.”

  “No, they pretty much follow a traditional schedule when it comes to that.”

  “Is she the only teacher there?”

  “Except for the woman who lives out there and is a member of the Brothers’ Colony. Cramer taught the subjects the state requires under compulsory education, English, Social Studies, math, that sort of thing.”

  “So what were they going to do while she was gone?” asked Jamison.

  “Probably just have the kids taught by the other teacher. The Brothers only go to school until they’re fifteen. A week isn’t going to matter much one way or another.”

  Decker said, “Let’s go talk to the Brothers, then.”

  “We’ll have to make an appointment.”

  Decker frowned. “Why, are they that busy?”

  “It’s just common courtesy.”

  “Fine. Then call them and tell them we’re on the way.”

  “Decker, they might not like us barging in like that.”

  Decker stared down at Kelly. “I doubt Irene Cramer ‘liked’ being butchered. So I’ll take finding her killer as fast as possible over somebody else’s possible hurt feelings over a visit.” He eyed the local cop severely. “This is a murder investigation, Kelly. Nothing takes precedence over that, at least in my book. If you think differently, we might have a problem working together.”

  Kelly shot Jamison a glance and then looked back at Decker. “I have no problem with that.”