ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) Read online

  He glanced at Frank and rolled his eyes. “I don’t care what kind of tip you got. I’m not meeting you alone, you got that? Hold on.” Lowering the phone to his lap, Miller said, “It’s Rona, says she’s got a hot tip about the Tongue Killer, wants to tell me about it. Alone. Ain’t gonna happen tonight. We re-canvas the vic-three neighbors, be ten o’clock by the time we finish.”

  Irritated, Frank snapped. “So?”

  “And get home at midnight?”

  “You think she’s angling for an inside scoop?”

  “Not necessarily. I don’t know her that well, met her at an NAACP banquet once. But she’s written some good articles. Rona’s got her sources.”

  “And we’ve got three dead women and no leads.”

  “Rona’s not gonna tell us anything that can’t wait till tomorrow.”

  “Jesus Christ! I’ll do it myself then, help you interview the vic-three neighbors till nine, meet Rona at nine-thirty.”

  “She don’t want to talk to you, she wants to talk to me.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what she wants. Tell her to be at Café du Mond at nine-thirty. I’ll take it from there.”

  Miller looked over, his dark eyes full of resentment, lower lip jutting out. “Suit yourself, Frank. But she’s gonna be pissed.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Time to confess, Dawn. You enjoy leading men into temptation. Don’t deny it. You know you do.”

  Spread-eagled on the bed, naked, she strained against the plastic rope that imprisoned her wrists and ankles, nostrils flared, her moans muffled by the duct tape that sealed her lips. Fueling his sinful desire.

  He unzipped his fly and took out his magnificent erection.

  Dawn’s moans grew louder, a grating sound that offended him.

  “You enjoy teasing men, don’t you?”

  Aroused by the terror in her eyes, he rolled on a condom. Disease was not his concern; evidence was. Leave no semen for police to analyze. He had learned a great deal from the books those FBI profilers had written. God might be on his side, but God helped those who helped themselves.

  He took out the garden shears, six-inch blades, very sharp with pointed tips. She scrunched her eyes into slits and began to sob. He pressed the tip of one blade against her nipple, drawing a spot of blood.

  “You enjoyed teasing me, didn’t you?”

  A tiny nod. Excellent. Now she was following the script. “You wanted to lead me into temptation. You wanted to have sex with me.”

  Sobbing, she strained against her bonds, fighting to escape. But she couldn’t. He had the power, she had none. The realization drove him wild, and he ejaculated. Red-faced with shame, he turned away. It was all her fault, arousing him, forcing him to commit sins of the flesh.

  In the privacy of her bathroom, he removed the condom, flushed it down the toilet and pulled back the latex glove to check his wristwatch. Mickey Mouse smiled at him. Mickey was always smiling, always glad to see him, unlike his miserable excuse for a father. Mickey’s white-gloved hands pointed at nine-thirty. He’d been here an hour.

  Better hurry, warned the insistent voice in his mind.

  Using the tube of coral-pink lipstick from his tool kit, he printed his message on the medicine cabinet mirror. SINNER!

  When he returned to the bedroom she watched him, hair matted with sweat, eyes filled with dread, anticipating the worst. Everyone knew about his Absolutions. She knew what came next.

  The telephone rang, shattering the silence.

  Rage boiled into his throat. How dare someone interrupt his sacred ritual? He glared at Dawn, who gazed with desperate longing at the princess phone on her dresser. Did she think some miracle was going to save her?

  The machine clicked and Dawn’s voice said, “Hi. I can’t come to the phone now, but I’d love for you to leave a message.”

  And after the tone: “Hey, Dawn, it’s Mario. I’m getting us a pizza. I dunno about you, but I’m starving. Be there in ten minutes.”

  Mario. Dawn hadn’t told him about Mario. Another transgression.

  She wants Mario, not you, said the voice.

  She looked at him, eyes glazed with fear. Without warning, she wet the bed. He recoiled as urine spread over the sheet in a widening yellow stain. Disgusted by the pungent odor, he pulled the pillow out from under her head and pressed it over her nose and mouth, watching her eyes bulge. Her face turned crimson in her frenzied struggle to escape. But she couldn’t.

  He leaned on the pillow, harder and harder, watching the light fade from her eyes as her frantic struggles grew weaker minute by minute. After what seemed like forever, her body went limp. He reached for the shears.

  Mario will be here in ten minutes.

  His heart jolted in sudden fear. But without the glorious finale, his sacred ritual was incomplete. A failure.

  Forget it, said the voice. Get out now!

  The sinner obeyed.

  _____

  Hot, sweaty and frustrated, Frank dashed across Decatur Street to Café du Monde, a popular 24-hour tourist stop in the heart of the French Quarter. He and Miller had struck out with the vic-three neighbors. The second round of interviews had elicited no new leads, just the inevitable question: Why can’t you catch this guy?

  A jazz trio on the sidewalk outside the cafe competed with traffic noise, led by a skinny black man playing Satin Doll on tenor sax. Inside a large tent, young wait-staff in white aprons and hats delivered chicory-laced coffee and beignets—squares of fried dough piled high with powdered sugar—to a diverse assortment of patrons clustered around small wrought-iron tables.

  Frank spotted a black woman in the rear corner of the tent, rail-thin in a loud magenta blouse and a slim black skirt: Rona Jefferson, frowning at her wristwatch, then sipping her coffee and toying with a box of Marlboros on the table beside her purse. He snaked through the narrow aisles to her table, introduced himself and pulled up a chair.

  Her dark eyes bored into his, no smile. “Where’s Kenyon?”

  Hostility oozing from every pore. She wanted to talk to Miller, not his ofay partner. Too bad. “Some kind of family emergency. He’s married, you know? Got a wife and two kids.” Fibbing to let Miller off the hook.

  She gazed at him, large eyes in a narrow face, thin lips and coal-black skin, not beautiful, but attractive in an edgy sort of way. Her lip curled, but not in a smile. “And you’re married to the job?”

  He touched his aching cheekbone, working to suppress his irritation. “It’s been a long night, Rona. Who’s your tipster?”

  “I’ll talk to Kenyon tomorrow.” She picked up the box of Marlboros and dropped it in her purse, clearly intending to leave.

  “Hold it. You got information, give it to me now. We’re working these murders twelve, fourteen hours a day. Tomorrow won’t be any different. Who’s your informant?”

  Her lips quirked in annoyance, but she stayed seated, her eyes dark pools of distrust. “Kitty Neves. Three years ago I did a feature on prostitution in the French Quarter. Kitty was helpful and we kept in touch. She called me yesterday. All this hype about the Tongue Killer is freaking her out.”

  Frank waved off a young Asian waiter approaching the table with an order pad. “Is she black? White?”

  “Why? Does it matter?” Nostrils flaring with indignation.

  “It might. Black prostitutes and white prostitutes tend to attract different clientele. And you’re gonna tell me about a john, right?”

  “Okay! So she’s white, and so was the john. Can I tell the damn story?”

  Wired like a bomb ready to explode. He studied her eyes, thinking she might be on something, but they looked normal, no pinprick pupils from a coke-high. He gestured with his hand for her to continue.

  “Kitty met this guy in a bar on Bourbon Street, took him home and they had sex. Then he told her to stick out her tongue. When she did, he tried to cut it off. She screamed for help, and he ran away.”

  An intriguing story, but difficult to corroborate. “Did sh
e report it?”

  “A prostitute turning a trick?”

  Her voice was tinged with sarcasm, a thin reedy voice that sounded a bit like Billie Holliday. “How old is Kitty? She into drugs?”

  Rona took out the Marlboro box and toyed with it, flipping it end over end. “Thirty-five, and she doesn’t do drugs. She’s got a five-year-old kid to support. She wants out of the life.”

  “She wants the reward money.”

  “Damn it, you’re asking the wrong questions!”

  A sunburned man in a Hawaiian shirt at a nearby table turned and glared at them, frowning his disapproval.

  Rona lowered her voice and hissed, “What kind of cop are you? You didn’t even ask what the john looked like. You think the killer’s black, just like your boss. Norris won’t come out and say so, but he hints it every chance he gets. He held a brother in the lockup overnight just because someone saw him near one victim’s apartment.”

  Wired, with a chip on her shoulder as big as a tank. Tonight’s release of a third black-male person-of-interest had ratcheted up racial tensions in an already agitated city. Well, tough. He wasn’t going to coddle her.

  “What’s in this for you, Rona?”

  Her eyes bored into his. “Racial profiling is a fact of life in the South. My father was executed for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  That rocked him, just as she’d intended. “When was this?”

  “Fifteen years ago in Texas.” A muscle jumped in her jaw, and her eyes were mahogany agates. “I was sixteen, got to watch my mother drink herself to death because they executed an innocent man.”

  “How do you know he was innocent?”

  “Five years after they murdered my father an ex-con confessed to the crime. By then they had the DNA evidence to prove it.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been rough,” he said, flashing on Bobby Jones, power forward on his high school basketball team, Frank the point guard. Bused from blackest Roxbury to white privileged Swampscott, BJ slept at Frank’s house on game nights. Frank went on to Boston College. Ignored by college recruiters, BJ went into the drug business.

  “People keep telling me to get over it.” Rona’s eyes brimmed with tears. She blinked hard and raised her chin. “But I’ll never get over it.”

  Frank felt a rush of sympathy, picturing BJ in his coffin at the wake, dead at twenty in a drug deal gone bad. If he were falsely accused of a crime, would his daughter stand up for him? Four years ago his answer would have been a resounding yes. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  His cellphone chimed. He turned in his chair, angling away from the table to take the call, listening silently, sickened by what he heard. After a long minute, he punched off, his stomach churning with acid.

  Rona fixed him with a hard stare. “He got another one, didn’t he?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got to go.” He pushed back his chair.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his arm. “Will you and Kenyon talk to Kitty? I can set up a meet for tomorrow afternoon.” Naked desperation in her eyes.

  “Okay, but you better call me to confirm. The way things are going, it might be hard for us to get away. ”

  _____

  Rona watched him leave the cafe, fired up a cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke, hoping tonight’s aggravation was worth it, begging some cop to listen to Kitty after waiting outside the command center with all those reporters. Vultures awaiting the next victim. Her lip curled in disdain.

  The manager of the Clarion Call hadn’t lured her away from the Dallas Morning News to be a trashy newsmonger; he’d hired her for her ability to mold public opinion with her incisive—some said confrontational—columns.

  Three times a week she wove 700 words into a vivid tapestry that informed the African-American community: a vital task, what with a crazed killer on the loose and Special Agent Burke Norris, the good old boy from Atlanta, trying to advance his career, hell-bent on hanging these horrible murders on a black man.

  Kitty Neves would prove him wrong.

  Puffing her cigarette, Rona wove through the crowded tables to the sidewalk, dropped a dollar in the brother’s saxophone case and headed for her car. After hearing Kitty’s story, she had scanned the list of NOPD cops on the serial killer taskforce and there, like an answer to a prayer, was Kenyon Miller’s name. She didn’t know him well, but she knew he had the respect of the black community.

  But Miller had blown her off, had sent his partner instead. That was the problem: his partner. Renzi even looked Italian: glossy black hair and a beak of a nose. The jagged two-inch scar on his jaw didn’t scare her, but his eyes did, dark and penetrating, sucking the marrow from her bones.

  Until she told him about her father. Then, a glimmer of warmth and a hint of sadness had softened those predatory eyes.

  But every Italian guy she’d ever met was a racist pig.

  She sidestepped a pair of punk rockers—two pale faces, one with green hair, the other purple, both of them carrying plastic cups of beer—and lengthened her stride. Earlier, after getting off the phone with Miller, she had done her homework at the Clarion Call office. Miller’s partner had been a Boston cop. Bad news. She’d seen clips of the race riots in Boston during the court-ordered busing to integrate the schools back in the 70’s.

  And why, after seventeen years with Boston PD—twelve as a detective—had Renzi defected to New Orleans? A Lexis-Nexus search delivered the answer: Four years ago during a homicide bust at a public housing project, an innocent bystander, eleven-year-old Janelle Robinson, had died. Two black ministers called Renzi “a fine officer with the community’s best interests at heart.” Bottom line: an IA investigation had cleared him of responsibility for the girl’s death. But that didn’t make it so.

  Car keys in hand, she rounded a corner, flicked the remote to unlock her car, dropped her cigarette butt in the gutter and climbed into her Neon. For all she knew Renzi was sucking up to Norris. If Miller wouldn’t help her quash Norris’ black-killer theory, she would have to do it herself.

  The pen was mightier than the sword. She’d been in the news business for ten years, long enough to know that a hard-hitting op-ed column could raise a bigger ruckus than an AK-47.

  CHAPTER 3

  Friday 12:30 P.M.

  Conscious of his nagging erection, the sinner lurked in a corner of the restaurant foyer, oblivious to the couples chatting over drinks and the businessmen cementing deals over lunch. His eyes feasted on Roxy, a harlot in a slinky blue dress, grooming her honey-blond hair. Last week he’d seen her jump out of a red Miata and dash into Bennigan’s, boobs bouncing in her tight sweater. Tempting him. Like Dawn.

  You shouldn’t have come here, said the voice in his head.

  Shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t resist, not with Dawn’s picture plastered all over the news this morning, Dawn and the other three sluts, showing their seductive smiles. Unlike their fearful expressions as they lay before him, naked and helpless. The stories referred to Dawn as the fourth victim, but said her case differed “in one gruesome detail.”

  Everyone knew he took their tongues.

  But not Dawn’s. Mario had spoiled everything.

  You made a mistake, said the ever-carping voice.

  Irritated, he strode to the hostess station. Last week he’d been wearing his black shirt and Roman collar. Today he’d chosen tailored brown slacks and a gold paisley-print shirt that flattered his dark brown eyes.

  Roxy was scowling at a letter from a car leasing agency. He had assumed the Miata belonged to her boyfriend, but maybe Roxy had a more lucrative sideline to augment her hostess job. Sins of the flesh paid well.

  He turned on his charming smile, making sure his eyes echoed the smile.

  “Hi, Roxy, I’d like a booth for lunch, please.”

  With a perfunctory smile, she led him past two empty booths to the one beside the men’s room. Consigning him to Siberia. His eyelid spasmed in rapid blinks, and his mouth was drier than sawdust, but he forced himself to speak. “Y
ou’re l-l-looking l-l-lovely today, Roxy.”

  She gave him a pitying look, slapped down the menu and left.

  You’re not good enough for her. Stop stuttering.

  Anger roiled his gut as he watched her saunter away, wagging her ass, teasing him, then rejecting him just like the girls in high school. He’d been a straight A student, better looking than the other boys and not a single zit, but the girls shunned him. He became invisible, prowling the halls, watching the popular boys nuzzle their girlfriends, hormones raging. His were raging too, but his only release was his hand in the shower—

  “Hi, how ya doin’ today?” said a perky voice. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Startled, he looked up at a plain-looking girl with dirty-blond hair styled in an old-fashioned pageboy. Patti, her nametag said. His eyes roved over her chunky body and settled on the breasts that strained the buttons of her white blouse. “I’ll have a Sprite,” he said, smiling, making eye contact.

  “We got a great special today. Trout Almandine with garlic smashed potatoes.”

  “You’re pretty special yourself, Patti,” he said, maintaining his innocent choirboy smile.

  “Oh, go on!” She giggled and before she covered her mouth with her hand he glimpsed her top teeth, jutting out like a snow plow.

  “Well, you are,” he said, holding her gaze. “Are you new? I eat here quite often, and I don’t recall seeing you before.”

  “Sort of. I moved here a couple weeks ago from Iowa.” She looked at him expectantly, pen poised over her order pad.

  “Tell you what, Patti. You sold me on the trout special.”

  “You’ll like it, for sure.” She scribbled his order on the pad and took his menu. “Be right back with your Sprite.”

  His cock throbbed, hot and ready for this simple girl from Iowa, new in town, too busy to make many friends, no doubt, unless her boyfriend lived here. Sweat formed in his armpits when she returned with his Sprite.