Scalpers dgmm-2 Read online

  "You see now, Doc, why you can't go?"

  Dean saw all right: he saw red. It was as if the killers had done this animal thing to taunt him, to send a clear message to him that no matter what he did, they were freely going about the city taking life wherever and whenever they chose.

  "What do you know about the victim?” Dean asked Frank.

  "Mother of three, carrying her fourth, a Spanish lady name of Jimenez, Emanuella Jimmenez. Family's in shock, pestering the hospital for the kid."

  "Where did all this occur, Frank?"

  "She was being helped out by family services, treated as an outpatient at Mercy. She got counseling there, medication and treatment. Her doctor is, was, Dr. Martin Zodese. We talked with people at the hospital, which was the last place Mrs. Jimenez was seen before it happened."

  "Last night, while we were working over Park's remains..."

  "Sometime between eight and ten, Sid puts it at. I'm surprised he didn't tell you about it, but then, I don't have what you'd call a stellar witness, and maybe ... maybe you're right ... maybe there is no connection and the old bum just conjured up what he saw out of his head...."

  Dean considered every possibility. A strong desire tugged at him to go on with his plans, his life. Hadn't he a right to that much? But an equally strong professional sense of determination tugged the other way.

  "I think, Frank, I'm going to my hotel, freshen up, get some rest before I make any decisions, okay?"

  Dyer nodded. “Sure, sure, Doc, I understand."

  "Need a lift, stranger?” came a female voice from behind him, and Dean turned to face Peggy.

  "I can catch a cab, Peggy."

  "You trying to dodge me, Doctor?"

  "No, no ... just very tired."

  "Then let me drive you."

  "All right, we need to talk anyway."

  "Just my feeling exactly."

  Behind him, as they went for Peggy's personal car, Dean heard Dyer say, “I know whatever you decide, Dr. Grant, will be the right choice."

  Dean wasn't so sure anymore.

  Peggy, on their way to the Hilton, tired of the silence, reached across the seat and squeezed his hand. “Been a tough time for you, I know."

  "For you, too. I understand you're suspended from active duty, pending—"

  "Pending, yes. Internal Affairs been all over my ... my behind."

  He nodded and breathed in a deep whiff of her perfume, and it reminded him of their intimate encounter. “I.A.D. can do that, drive you to even look guilty as well as feel guilty—but don't let them. Forensics has already cleared you of the murder, Peggy. It was them, the Scalpers."

  She let out a pent-up breath of air. “I was hoping you'd give me some idea what's going on. You're the man with the answers around here."

  "I wish it were so!"

  "I'll put my money on you.” She was silent for a while, then. “Makes people do crazy things, being out of control."

  Dean was trying to formulate what he wanted to tell her, what he must keep from her, as he and Sid had agreed, for the sake of the case, to release no details. His silence made her go on. “There wasn't ever much between Park and me. Two nights, that's all ... two nights, and he was so cold and uncommunicative, well ... I decided he wasn't worth the extra effort, not at all like you. It happened before you arrived—"

  "You don't have to explain anything to me, kid."

  "Kid? Don't start talking to me like I'm your baby sister!"

  "You could be."

  "With my skin color, not hardly. Dean, don't shut me out. All right, maybe you've had second thoughts about us, and understandably, but is that a reason to stonewall me on the case? Christ, who has more right to know what's going on than me? Look at this!” She tilted her officer's cap back and displayed the scar at her forehead.

  "We know you were drugged, Peggy."

  "Drugged?"

  "I can't say anymore than that at the moment."

  "You've said enough."

  "Absolutely."

  She breathed deeply. “Good ... good."

  "I was going to get on a plane this afternoon and leave, Peggy—"

  "Without a word?"

  "No, I planned to say good-bye."

  "And now what?"

  "Now ... now, I don't know."

  The car pulled into the Hilton parking lot and Dean got out. “Dean,” she said from where she remained sitting, “I'm sorry if ... you know, if I broke faith with you. You're a good and decent man—"

  Dean put up a hand to her, smiling across at her. “Hey, Officer! Ease up on Peggy Carson, will you? She's got as much a right to happiness as anybody, I promise you.” He was getting his things from the back seat when she said, “Anybody ever tell you, Grant, you've got a heart of gold?"

  "Go, get outa here."

  "You're sure?” Her smile was an inviting at this moment as the first time Dean had met her, and again he wanted to hold her close and bury himself in her, but he knew now that it could only lead to greater problems.

  "Yeah, Peggy, I'm sure."

  "Friends then."

  "Always, always."

  Dean watched her drive away.

  TWELVE

  A shower, a shave, and a phone call from Jackie changed Dean's outlook decidedly, and helped him to decide his next course of action. Jackie was in much better spirits, due in large part to her learning that the shadow she felt following her for some time now was only a policeman assigned by Ken Kelso to watch her. The fact meant a lot, and she was grateful to Dean for passing it along. Like Dean, she was angry with Ken for having done such a thing without either her or Dean's knowledge.

  "I don't know when I'll speak to him again,” she had said.

  Like Dean, Jackie was feeling terribly lonely and lost without her partner, but they reaffirmed their love for one another over the telephone, and she reaffirmed her faith in him by telling him to remain in Florida to complete his work, to do what he had gone to Orlando to do.

  "There's more to do than you know,” he protested.

  "Any less, and I'd say you were sluffing off."

  "It could go another month, things are in such disarray here."

  "Sid's work is that bad?"

  "It's not just Sid ... it's the whole homicide division. One of the cops we were working closely with has ... well, he's dead."

  "Dead?" Her one-word reply had a definite tremor to it. "How?"

  "The killers got to him. He was working alone, a real maverick, and they got to him first."

  She was silent for a moment. Dean pictured her in his mind's eye, tall and lovely, energetic, filled with opinion and dedication, and committed to her work as head nurse in pediatrics at Rush-Presbyterian Hospital. “You will be careful, won't you?"

  "Absolutely. I'm no hero."

  "I couldn't stand to lose you."

  "I love you, darling."

  "I love you too, very much."

  "And as soon as I can—"

  "Hurry home, yes...."

  Now Dean was alone with his thoughts, the fatigue held at bay by the shower and a short nap. He paced about his room, mentally going over the evidence gathered to date. It created a pattern in miniature of the killers. It implicated someone, if they could only link it all to the individuals responsible for this horror.

  The phone rang, shattering his concentration. It was Frank Dyer.

  "Dyer, where are you?"

  "Mercy Hospital, glad I caught you. I got a doctor here who says he saw Mrs. Jimenez, the dead woman, talking to a guy who was driving a Mercedes just before she died."

  "Mercedes? You get plate numbers?"

  "Dream on. But this guy says he's seen the car at the hospital before."

  "Does he know whose car it is?"

  "He's not sure. Lot of doctors here drive expensive cars. Our boy's an intern, drives a Honda cycle."

  "Still, there are only a limited number of Mercedes that can be in that staff lot at any given time."

  "Exactly, and I'm on it
. What about you, doctor? You still on the case?"

  "Yeah, for now I am."

  "Great ... great. I'll let you know what I find out. Once I get a list of names to work with and possibles, I'll get back to you."

  It might pan out to nothing, or Dyer's rundown of the Mercedes could lead to a break in the case. They were due for some luck. A number of clues already pointed to at least one of the killers being a medical man, or at least in close proximity to medical supplies, capable of moving in and out of medical settings without unduly disturbing anyone.

  Dean went downstairs to the lobby of the Hilton to the Hertz rental booth. He was soon pocketing a key, and with his medical bag in hand he started for the car, which was somewhere in the depths of an underground lot, a section numbered C-17. The lot was empty and silent. Dean was unable to find the car or anything like a marker for a moment, until he saw, far off, the yellow Hertz banner. Suddenly he heard the sound of a motor behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was a Mercedes. He stared hard to see the driver, but like many Florida cars, the glass was so darkly tinted it was impossible to see within. Dean's heart skipped a beat as he mentally took down the plate number, a New York license. The car had eerily crept up on his heels, as if following Dean, like some obedient dog. Dean thought of the many ways he could die, thought of how Park had had the killers suddenly turn on him as he was about to close in on them, and the thoughts caused beads of perspiration to turn into watery rivlets dripping down his face. Finally, having had enough, he felt for the .38 he had strapped on at the last moment before leaving his room, the gun which Ken Kelso had advised he carry with him at all times.

  The wheels of the Mercedes suddenly squealed. Dean whipped around, gun in hand, to face down the driver of the car.

  The car had come to an abrupt halt Dean heard the snap of locks on all four doors, a commotion inside the car. Then a back window slid down halfway. “Is this a stickup?” asked a man who must be near ninety, delighted with the prospect.

  "Grandpa! Close that window!” someone shouted at the man.

  Grandpa said in his best cursing voice, “Shit, if he wants to, he can shoot the damn window out! I say we negotiate for our release!"

  "Police!” said Dean, identifying himself, showing his badge. “I would like—"

  "Oh, the police, Fred! Tammy! The police!” said Grandpa, his white head showing as he exited the car and came out with his hands up. “Just like TV, ain't it?"

  The younger man, perhaps fifty-five, and his wife got out of the car, and Dean saw that they were all wearing bright, loud clothes, the old man in Hawaiian shorts. Dean realized immediately that he'd overreacted to the slow-moving Mercedes that had come up on him the way it had ... they'd simply been searching for a parking space.

  Dean apologized, saying he was on the lookout for a stolen Mercedes, and he thought for a moment that—

  "Police harassment, that's what this is,” complained Tammy, a white-haired forty-eight-year-old, long on makeup, short on weight control.

  "Please accept my apologies,” Dean said as he rushed for his rental car. Behind him he could hear the cackle of the old man.

  "He weren't no Don Johnson, was he?"

  Pitching his bag into the medium-sized Chrysler, Dean drove for downtown. His return to the lab would, he hoped, be welcomed by Sid, and maybe the friction between him and Hodges would by now have dissipated. As Dean drove out of the garage into the street, he saw the Mercedes leave as well. Funny, he'd thought they were searching for a parking place. He imagined for a moment the bizarre scene of a scalping murder in which a woman was not only brutally scalped, but her unborn child was ripped from her as well, and standing tall over the body were Tammy, Fred, and Grandpa in Hawaiian shorts. There were so many bizarre twists to this case that the thought wasn't funny.

  A second look in his rearview mirror told Dean that the sleek, gray Mercedes he now saw had an altogether different license plate than Fred and Tammy's. This car had no plate on the front. As the driver suddenly veered off, Dean saw that it had a Florida plate, but it was too far away for him to make out the numbers.

  Dean gunned the gas pedal and the car sped back to the cream-colored Municipal complex downtown. Inside was the booze hound who had slept and cowered within sight of the murder of the Jimenez woman and her unborn child.

  * * * *

  "I told you all I know,” grumbled the broken-down old drunk with the tattered gray coat, baggy pants, and grease-spotted tie. He fumbled with a hat that looked older than he did. His white hair was a wild mass of explosive strands waving above him with the wind stirred up by a ceiling fan. His jowls and gums had long since caved in, his teeth gone. Dean imagined his liver was also in sad shape. From the way Dyer kept his handkerchief close by his nose, Dean imagined the old guy smelled pretty bad, too.

  "Just give us some idea what this man looked like,” pleaded Frank Dyer, exasperated with the old-timer. Dean imagined Dyer had been at it for some time.

  "And I ain't lying, son, got to have a drink bad—real bad, you understand, son?” said Frank Dyer's stellar witness, brought in for questioning.

  Dean watched through a one-way glass, and suddenly Chief Jake Hodges, taking a personal interest in the case, blotted out Dean's view of the old man, coming at him like a bull, asking, “What year is this, Mr. Silbey?"

  "Year? What year?"

  "Do you know what year it is? What day?"

  "Course I do. Nineteen and—and eighty..."

  "Eighty what, Mr. Silbey?"

  "Keep civil now, son ... it's eighty, eighty-seven, no, eight."

  "Who's the President of the United States?” asked Hodges."

  "I tell ya', I gotta’ have a drink bad ... real bad,” said Silbey. Dean entered the room where he and Silbey were to confer.

  "Who's the goddamned President of the—"

  "Randolph Fuckin’ Scott!” Silbey glared at Hodges, then laughed at his own joke, saying in Red Skelton silliness, “Fooled ya', didn't I ... course it's Ronnie Reagan ... or did that rag get taken off the Bush! Ha! Say, can't a murder witness get a drink around here?"

  Dean saw they were getting nowhere with the old man, and he thought how differently Ken Kelso in Chicago would handle the derelict. Dean exited and returned fifteen minutes later with what he hoped to be a remedy for the old man's memory. By now, Hodges had disappeared, and Dyer, too, had given up. Dean was sorry to have missed Dyer; he wanted to tell him about his decision to stay and see the case to its conclusion. Dean almost missed old Silbey, too, who was being escorted kindly to the nearest exit, and told thank you and good-bye by a female officer that he doffed his hat at.

  Dean caught up with the old man on the street, frightening him at first, but calming him down with what he displayed, a pint of Jack Daniels.

  "Huh, hmm, not bad stuff,” said the old critic. “All right, Don—” He shaded his eyes from the bright sun.

  "Dean."

  "All right, I'll sit and talk a spell with you."

  Dean found a park bench outside the municipal building.

  "Mr. Silbey, you want to help the police, don't you?"

  "Well yeees, but ... I was left here alone by Mr. Fat, and I got awful dry and they started in angry at me, the big ‘un."

  Dean stared away at a tree to catch his breath. The old man smelled like the scummy bottom of a trash can.

  "Well, now, you're all set, old-timer, and welcome to it."

  "You're sent from the heavens, a real godsend,” said Silbey.

  "No, Mr. Silbey, I'm with the coroner's office. I'm Dean Grant—call me Dean."

  "Thank you, Dean,” Silbey said after another swill, smiling an almost lovable, toothless grin, his wrinkly, leathered face covered in white stubble. The drink had its desired effect for them both. Silbey the Third, as he began to call himself, quickly improved in his communication skills, speaking out loudly against police brutality of a mental nature. Two large swallows on the pint bottle effectively emptied it to a re
maining quarter. It was like a balm for the man. Dean took the container and tucked it away, making the old man grimace.

  "What'd you do that for?"

  "You'll get it back if you'll tell me what you know."

  "That'd take ... well, a lifetime!"

  "About the killing the other night."

  "You ... you believe me? That I saw it? Swear I did,” he told Dean, and then with great detail, Silbey went into the horrid act, standing and displaying with his own hands and arms how the little man chopped and cut away the woman's head to get at the prize he wanted. He moved off some distance, pacing off the space between the killers and himself. Then, finishing, he said, “What in God's name do you suppose they did with that blood-soaked thing, Don? What? Going to have nightmares over this, I know, lessen I can stay bombed. Can I have it back?"

  "Sorry, sir—not just yet. Can you tell me anything at all about the man ... the big man, I mean."

  Silbey begged off. “Not much to tell. Was dark ... and he looked like just any other guy."

  "His clothes, what about them?"

  "Good clothes, nice, well dressed, yeah."

  "Sweater, shirt sleeves?"

  "Sport coat, I think."

  "Color?"

  "Green, no, light blue."

  "Color of his hair?"

  "Hair ... hair?"

  "Yes, his mop,” said Dean, tugging at his own hair.

  "Too dark to tell. Regular ... nothing special. But the midget guy, he was covered with black hair, real black. Thought it was a coat at first. Looked almost like a monkey, I tell you."

  "Height, weight?"

  "Like I told the cop, I was flat on my back. Even the dwarf guy looked thirty feet tall to me."

  Dean nodded, relenting. “Will you give me a call if you can remember anything else, Mr. Silbey? Anything at all?” Dean jotted down two numbers on a card he handed the old man, who kept his eye on Dean's pocket, where the bottle had disappeared. Dean gave in, handing it to the man.

  "You mean I'm free to go now?"

  "Yes."

  "Listen, I ... I work at Chung Fat's..."

  "The little joint on the alley where the body was found?"