Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder (2 page)

“Come on, boys,” I said as I turned in a circle looking for the Porta Potties I thought I’d seen not far away. They’d been dubiously renamed “privies” in an effort to give them a little more authenticity. I was pretty sure the only thing authentic to the period would be the smell.

Dawg bounced to attention beside me while Bogey lumbered to his feet, looking dazed. The howling behind us maxed out in volume. I was more than happy to skedaddle before the audience charged to the biffs themselves after standing immobile for the last forty-odd minutes. We passed beneath a white banner with a red hem tied to two tall posts that proclaimed the privies were dead ahead.

The outhouses were situated in an oblong circle surrounded by an eight-foot plank fence. Once inside, I scoped out somewhere to stow the mutts and was relieved to catch sight of a large handicapped biff. We would probably all fit.

I checked to see if there were any physically challenged people headed toward the smelly brown plastic house. Fest-goers popped in and out of the regular outhouses, but no one seemed to be in imminent need of the double extra-wide one. With one final glance about, we charged up to the door of the john and I yanked it open.

For one stunned second, I stood frozen, mouth agape, much like one of the mimes I’d seen working the crowd earlier.

Bogey bolted forward. He buried his face in the crotch of a man perched on the pot. Before I had a chance to back out and apologize, the man swayed and then started to tip forward. Bogey yelped and scrambled backward. One hundred pounds of freaked out dog tackled me ass-first, and I crashed onto my butt on the ground.

The man continued his slow somersault to the warped plastic floor. Strangely, a large, dark-green pickle protruded from his mouth. The sight mesmerized me until I lost sight of it when the top of his head gently thunked against the bottom of the john. Then the rest of his body flopped sideways onto the filthy surface, facing away from me. I scrambled to my feet and reached to shake his shoulder.

Oh my
god
.

The back half of his skull was missing. It was dripping down the back wall of the Porta Potty.

Two

I keyed 911 into
my phone with shaking hands and gave the dispatcher the particulars. Someone flagged down a Fest security guard as curious gawkers gathered.

I knelt a short distance from Half-Headless Dead Guy and scrubbed Bogey’s face vigorously with wet wipes, all the while wondering where the hell JT was. She’d been gone forever, and that was entirely unlike her. Really, how the hell could this be happening? I’d seen more dead bodies in the past year than I wanted to, and they weren’t even relatives at funerals. We were at the Renaissance Festival, for Pete’s sake, not in some seedy part of town.

I finished rubbing every whisker on Bogey’s just-touched-a-dead-guy face and remained crouched with an arm around each dog’s neck. They watched the proceedings with wide eyes. I thought they somehow sensed this was bad. Very bad.

In short order, the Renaissance security platoon of maroon-caped men and women in yellow tunics crawled over the place like fire ants on a hill. Everyone but me was hustled out of the area. Two of the Ren Fest’s Swiss Guard security people covered the entrance, and, just like that, this set of privies was closed.

One of the security people kept me company until the sheriff showed up and they could hand me over to detail the grisly facts of my find. My guard was a square-chinned young man with a neatly trimmed beard and big eyes. A stoic expression was frozen on his face, but he’d turned a little green around the gills when he first caught sight of the body. He held on for dear life to a staff topped by a yellow flag bearing a red cross, which apparently signified him as a Renaissance copper. When this was over, someone was going to have to pry his fingers off the wood.

“Hey,” I asked when I glimpsed his pasty complexion. “You okay?”

Without tearing his eyes from the scene in front of the handicapped biff, he nodded stiffly. I hoped he wouldn’t lose his lunch.

As suddenly as I’d forgotten about it, my bladder reminded me with a vengeance that it still needed attention. “Hey, I hate to ask, but I really have to go to the bathroom.”

My pal lifted a hand and pointed to a biff five steps away. I handed him the dogs’ leashes, which he absently accepted, and made a beeline. I did my business with immense relief and returned to Green Face’s side.

Where on earth was JT? Cripes, if I needed anything, it was her calm, reassuring self right about now.

The guards at the entry were busy waving people off. Maybe that was the problem. I said, “My girlfriend is Minneapolis PD, and she’s looking for me. Can you tell those guards at the entrance to keep an eye out for her?”

“Nope. Sorry, ma’am. I can’t leave. You’ll have to wait until you speak with the sheriff’s department.”

I rolled my eyes. Wasn’t I allowed a phone call or something? Then I remembered my cell. I pulled it out, expecting guard boy to grab it, unless he keeled over first. But his eyes remained locked on the dead dude. I glanced around surreptitiously and quickly hit JT’s speed dial. It rang once and then kicked into voicemail. I ended the call without leaving a message. Good grief. Anger started to spread through my veins, mixing with the sick disbelief that was well entrenched in my gut.

After another five minutes, a door that I hadn’t noticed creaked open in the fence between two of the Porta Potties. Beyond it a browning, grass-covered field extended as far as I could see. It was currently littered with the flashing red and blue lights of numerous squad cars and one ambulance.

“Sneaky,” I said to my still-green friend.

Beads of perspiration rolled down his face. He pulled his gaze from the body and tuned into the action at the fence door. “Yeah, it’s for emergencies.”

Deputies funneled into the area and swarmed around the handicapped biff. A tall cop with ramrod-straight posture stalked over and spoke to one of the Fest guards, who pointed in our direction. The man turned on his heel and steamed our way.

He was at least six feet tall, with a shaved head. Lean and wiry, not an ounce of fat bulged where his gray button-down dress shirt was tucked into sharply pressed black pants. A gun and extra magazines were secured on the right side of his fashionable, rotten-banana-colored belt.

“So,” he said to me as he closed in, “you found the body?”

I crossed my arms and really, really wished JT were here. “Yeah, I did.”

He turned to my guard pal. “Beat it, kid.” The sheriff or deputy or whatever he was tossed his chin in the direction of the gate entrance. The guard shot me a half-grateful, half-apologetic look and hustled off.

The cop’s Neanderthal eyebrows were bushy and blond, overshadowing watery blue eyes. I’d bet anything those two facial caterpillars would grow wild, wiry hairs that stuck out at crazy angles when he got older.

The man introduced himself as Scott County Sheriff’s Detective Clint Roberts. He pulled a palm-sized notebook from his breast pocket and rumbled gruffly, “Name?”

For the next few minutes I listed my vitals while watching for any sign of JT and at the same time struggling to keep Bogey from giving the man a snootful in the nads.

I was about to explain my foray into the handicapped biff when I noticed a dust-up at the entrance. I glimpsed a familiar chestnut head and realized the commotion was my wayward girlfriend. Thank God and about damn time. I opened my mouth to tell Detective Roberts that the party crasher was with me when JT managed to wiggle past the guards. She spotted me and charged toward us like a terrified bull zeroing in on an irritating picador.

She skidded to a stop next to me. As soon as she laid eyes on the detective, the panicked expression on her face immediately melted into either distaste or fury, I couldn’t quite tell. Maybe both. I had just a moment to ponder that when she said, or rather, snarled, “Roberts. They have you on this?”

You could’ve cut the tension with a medieval broadsword.

The detective squinted at JT. “This is a crime scene, Bordeaux, and I’d advise—”

“Can it. Why are you questioning my girlfriend?”

I opened my mouth, but Roberts beat me to it. “It’s
Detective
to you. She found the victim. Therefore she needs to answer my questions.” He added sarcastically, “Minneapolis has no jurisdiction down here.”

A muscle in JT’s cheek bulged as she clenched her teeth, but she held her tongue. I’d never seen her act combative with anyone in her own profession.

Roberts waited a moment then nodded. “That’s a good girl.” He dismissed JT by turning his back to her. JT stiffened, and for a second I was afraid she was going to go after him.

Instead, she took a breath, then shifted around so she was again facing Roberts. From the way she crammed her hands deep in her pockets and pressed her lips in a straight line, I knew she was working really hard to rein her temper in. I casually slid a hand around her elbow in case she lost the fight.

“Okay, Ms. O’Hanlon,” the detective said as he refocused his attention on me, “you were at the part where your dog attacked the deceased.”

I said, “No, he never attacked—”

“Detective Roberts,” a short, bald man dressed in a windbreaker called out, waving a brown wallet as he hurried toward us, “I have an ID on the victim.”

JT pulled her hands from her pockets and propped her hands on her hips as she watched the exchange. I looked closely at her for the first time since she’d entered the crime scene. Her hair was in disarray, as if she’d flipped her head upside down and ruffled her fingers through it. Chunks of what appeared to be pickle bits were stuck to her shirt, and there were dark splotches on the material that looked wet. I wondered what happened to my salty specimen and why she might be wearing it. I leaned a little closer to her and sniffed. A sharp vinegary aroma wafted off her.

“Well, give it to me.” Roberts snatched the wallet out of his tech’s hand. He stared at it and blinked. Then he blinked again. “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

His eyes rose from the wallet and met JT’s fiery gaze. Without another moment’s hesitation, he pivoted and stomped through the crowd of people surrounding the outhouse and the dead guy. He knelt, and called out, “Bordeaux, you might want to take a look at this.”

JT met my eyes for a brief moment. The molten chocolate that usually stared back at me was hard as black diamonds. She walked over and bent down in the doorway of the biff beside Roberts.

They exchanged words and then both stood up. JT backed away as Roberts leaned toward her, grabbed her sleeve, and flicked something off. Probably a hunk of pickle. Then he pulled her closer, and took a big whiff of her T-shirt.

With a jerk of her shoulder, JT yanked the material out of his fingers. Roberts thrust himself right in her face. I was too far away to hear more than bits and pieces, but I did make out “pickle” and “this time” and “finally did it.”

Before I could blink, the detective spun JT around. He whipped out his handcuffs, yanked her hands behind her back, and snapped them around her wrists.

The Tenacious Protector—the little thing inside me that came to life when anyone I cared about was threatened in any way—roared with a vengeance that startled even me. Without conscious thought, I bolted toward them. Dawg and Bogey were just a fraction of a step behind. The two dogs charged along as I howled out what could only be categorized as a war cry.

I’d almost reached my destination when two lean, mean deputies tackled me flat to the ground. Air slammed from my lungs. I did have the presence of mind not to let go of the leashes as I hit the hard-packed earth. One cop landed square on my backpack. The thought that there’d be no way my newly dipped rose was going to survive that squashing flashed through my mind.

I heard JT yelling, far away and muffled, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Hands clamped tightly around my biceps and jerked me roughly to my feet. I swayed unsteadily between the two deputies.

Someone yanked the leashes from my hands.

As suddenly as it disappeared, clarity returned. Both dogs were barking and snarling. One of the deputies danced around trying to avoid their gnashing teeth and keep hold of the leashes. JT shouted at the dogs, and someone else was hollering at JT.

Detective Roberts had his meaty hands firmly on JT’s upper arms, holding her back. “Jesus Christ,” he shouted. “Get her the hell out of here. And those damn dogs too!”

I hissed in a breath, battling down the fury that continued to threaten to take my vision.

“Bogey! Dawg!” I yelled. Both dogs reluctantly stilled. The cop holding them looked like he might pee his pants.

Detective Roberts bellowed again, “Take her somewhere out of my sight and finish getting her statement before I haul her ass in!”

A thin, dark-haired, female deputy trotted over.

I shook myself loose of the two deputies. “I’m okay,” I said hoarsely. “I’m not going to do anything. Jesus. JT, what the fuck is going on?”

JT said, “I didn’t do this. Go find Tyrell, Shay. He’ll know what to do.”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. My eyes flicked des
perately between JT and Roberts.

Detective Roberts grinned as hateful a grin as I’d ever seen and addressed my woman. “JT Bordeaux, you’re under arrest for the murder of Russell Krasski.”

Three

An hour later, after
detailing my limited knowledge of prior events to the deputy, I was in the truck with both Dawg and Bogey, tooling toward Minneapolis’s 3rd Precinct as fast as I could. I honestly had no idea what had just happened back there.

I tried, with no success, to get a hold of Coop. I knew he’d know what to do, and if he didn’t, he’d help me figure things out. Damn dude. Maybe he was behind bars himself on disorderly conduct charges against the Green Beans. Wouldn’t be the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. I left a message for him to give me a buzz.

There was no way JT killed anyone, even if she did pack a gun both on duty and off. But you better believe I was going to find out what was going on, and fast. JT’s former partner-on-the-job, Tyrell Johnson, was a decent guy and a great cop who was now working Narcotics. I hoped JT was right when she said he’d know what to do.

I disconnected after dialing Tyrell’s cell for the fourth time and swore some more.

For once the freeway wasn’t clogged with a whole lot of traffic, probably since it was the weekend. As I headed into Minneapolis, I tried to organize the thoughts churning through my head. I saw Bogey’s nose in a cadaver’s crotch, the gargantuan pickle stuffed in the dead man’s mouth, and then handcuffs being clicked onto JT’s wrists—all these images appeared and disappeared from my vision like a slideshow. Why did JT smell pickley? None of this stuff was adding up.

By the time I pulled into the 3rd Precinct, twilight was turning into full-on dark. I prayed to the powers that be that Tyrell was within the dreary confines of the red-brick stationhouse.

I cracked the windows for the still-unsettled pooches and hustled between the cars in the lot. I barely missed mowing down an older couple leaving the station and nearly ripped the front door from the frame when I flung it open.

The lobby smelled of mold and fear-tinged sweat. A narrow bench occupied one side of a short hallway, and at the end of the hall were a couple of closed doors and an information window with thick, probably bulletproof glass. Behind the window, a cop with black curly hair shuffled through a sheaf of papers. Her nameplate read
C. Chevalier,
and she looked familiar. I’d probably run into her at one of JT’s off-duty police functions.

The screech of the buzzer startled her. She looked up from her stack of paperwork and keyed a button. “Help you?” Her voice sound-ed tinny and bored through beat-up speakers nestled in the glass.

My heart banged within my chest. “Is Tyrell—Detective Johnson—here?”

Recognition dawned on her round face. Her dark eyes crinkled as she smiled. “You’re with Bordeaux, right?”

Well, maybe this was going to be easier than I thought. “Yup, I am. But right now I’m looking for Tyrell. Do you know if he’s in?”

“Hang on.” She picked up a phone and punched in numbers. I watched her mouth move as she spoke to someone on the other end. After about twenty seconds, she hung up and keyed the mic. “He’s in and will be down in just a couple minutes.”

I expressed my gratitude and moved away from the window. A shiver shook me, and I wished I’d thought to grab the sweatshirt I’d left in the truck. With the adrenaline of the body discovery and JT’s arrest, I was fricking freezing. I wrapped my arms around myself and wondered if word had yet gotten back to the station that one of their own was cooling her heels in a cage. Did agencies share info like that?

Despite her profes
sion, terror over JT’s well-being wasn’t something I was used to, and the emotion welled up again unbidden. I’d fought panic’s rising tide the entire way from Shakopee to Minneapolis, and every time I thought I had it under control, the force of it made me grind my teeth. I was going to have a jaw-ache before this was done. Typically I was pretty levelheaded. On the rare occasion when I lost it and the Tenacious Protector popped out to play, there was usually hell to pay on someone’s part. If somebody somehow threatened my loved ones, I lost my mind—but there was no one to scream at or punch out about this. And right now it made me somewhat sick and impotently furious that I couldn’t do a damned thing to help the woman I loved. Of course, I was pretty damn sure I was overreacting.
Come on, Shay,
I chided myself,
JT is a good cop with a good reputation. She won’t be sitting in that cell for long.
But when I was in the midst of heart-pounding fear and supreme confusion, losing my mind was easy to do.

I toed a crack in the dirty linoleum floor and focused on regulating my breathing and slowing my heart. I was pretty sure I’d have a heart attack if I kept this up for too much longer.

After what seemed like twenty minutes but was probably only five, one of the doors swung open and Tyrell stepped into the lobby.

“Hey sugar. What’re you doin’ here?” A grin sliced his face and set his dimples dimpling. In two big steps he engulfed me in a bear hug. For a moment, Tyrell’s cologne, Sean John’s Unforgiveable, overtook the station stink, and I inhaled deeply. I knew what it was because JT and I had given it to him for his birthday a couple of weeks before. We’d spent twenty minutes at the Macy’s men’s fragrances counter, and I’d lost my ability to distinguish between scents before she settled on the Sean John stuff.

I dragged myself out of my cologne-induced reverie. As soon as I contemplated what I had to tell him, any calm I’d managed to gain during my wait evaporated. “Ty, we have to do something. I don’t know what happened. They slapped handcuffs on her—”

“Cuffs on who? Eddy?”

“No! JT. He just—and she—” I was losing it again, hyperventilating. I gasped, “Half his head was gone—”

“Shay! Exactly who and what are you talking about?” Tyrell gripped my shoulders and pushed me to arm’s length, alarm finally registering on his face. I wasn’t usually quite so random when I spoke, but for the life of me I couldn’t seem to put together a coherent sentence.

“The dead guy tipped over—with a pickle—I had to use the bath-
room—”

“SHAY!” Tyrell gave me a good shake, making my teeth clack. “Calm down now and tell me what the hell happened.”

I tried again. “They handcuffed her. Arrested her. They took her—”

“Arrested who? Took her where?”

Obviously Scott County and Minneapolis were not currently sharing information. Okay. I hauled in a shuddering breath. “JT. They arrested JT for murder.”

With a foam cup of ghastly cop coffee in my hand, I sat on an old metal chair, its seat ripped from too many criminal butts. I faced Tyrell across the file-strewn mess he called his desk.

After he understood that it was JT who’d been cuffed and stuffed into a cruiser like a common criminal, he whisked me through a locked door and up a flight of warped, green-linoleum-covered stairs to a squad room. Desks, filing cabinets, and a long table at the back of the room filled the space. Only a couple other detectives were in residence, and both worked feverishly on computers sitting on top of their desks. They paid me no mind as we passed by.

Ty had led me to his desk and pushed me into the chair. “I’ll be back in two shakes.”

I’d tried to gather myself as I had stared at the dirty gray wall. I was on a rollercoaster that clacked its way up the track, rolled over the top, and finally dropped with sizzling speed into that breath-taking moment of free fall. Usually the cars would hit the bottom of the hill and head up the next incline. The problem was that I’d been in free fall since the moment JT disappeared through the fence toward the waiting squads in the field beyond. My heart had been in my throat ever since, and the end wasn’t anywhere in sight.

I really needed to get a grip, but I had no idea how to regain my equilibrium. I tried to breathe slow and deep again, through my nose. That seemed to help a little.

Tyrell had returned with a cup of lukewarm joe and handed it to me. I took a sip and nearly choked on the bitter liquid that flowed over my tongue. It was nothing like the rich brew we served at the Hole.

He now settled in his own seat and said, “Okay, Shay, take it slow and start from the beginning.”

I did, and for the next twenty minutes filled him in on everything that had happened. Maybe the horrible coffee had done its job after all.

“So,” I concluded, “JT told me to come to you, and here I am.”

Tyrell leaned back in his chair and crossed his heavily muscled arms over his heavily muscled chest. Tightly curled black ringlets framed his chiseled face. His hair was longer than I’d seen it before. That made sense; because of the position he was now working, he often went undercover. He pulled a big breath in and let it out slowly, his dark mocha complexion unusually pale. “Are you sure the name of the victim was Russell Krasski?”

“Yes, I’m positive.” That name would forever be branded in my brain.

Tyrell ran a hand over his chin. “Shit.”

“What’s going on? Who’s this Krasski guy?”

“JT never told you about him?”

“No.”

Tyrell suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. He shifted and gave me a considering look, but I couldn’t read his dark gaze. “If JT never told you about this, I’m not sure I should.”

“Ty, come on.” I barely restrained myself from jumping out of my chair and across the desk. “JT is sitting in a cell at the Scott County jail right now. She needs our help. I can’t help her if I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

Tyrell’s jowls bunched as he clenched his teeth. “Let me call a couple people and see what’s up. Then I’ll explain.”

I listened to two one-sided conversations and couldn’t glean much from either except that JT was indeed in custody, and she was being held away from the rest of the inmate population because she was a cop—a well-known cop with a lot of busts. There were a number of cons she’d had a hand in putting away who’d be after whatever revenge they could get. My blood ran cold at the thought of JT in there, alone and possibly in danger. My heart revved and I fought the red haze that appeared whenever my Protector came knocking.
Deep, even breaths, Shay. In and out
.

Tyrell hung up and slid his right desk drawer open without meeti
ng my eyes. He flipped through a number of files before shutting that drawer and opening one on the opposite side. After a moment, he pulled out a thick manila folder with the name
Krasski
scribbled in black Sharpie on the tab. He thumbed it open and shuffled through the contents. After a minute or two, he closed the file and threw it on his desktop. He then leaned back in his chair, threaded his fingers, and put his hands behind his head.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, Shay, you sit calm while I tell you this. I can only give you the basics because the case is classified. So don’t go all crazy on me, you hear?”

That didn’t sound good. I felt like I was stuffed in the pouch of a cocked slingshot about to be flung to Kingdom Come. The slightest nudge would set me off, which is never a good idea when the person in front of you has a gun and badge. I breathed deep once, then again.
Oh God, just end this
. “Tell me.”

Tyrell pulled in his generous bottom lip and chewed on it a moment. “Awhile back, JT and I were on a team that set up a sting on a ring that abducted kids, usually minority children whose parents had no resources and questionable status within the country. Girls were sold to the highest bidder, usually to someone overseas. The girls who couldn’t be sold as marriage material, and all the boys, were bartered, traded, or sold as child slaves.”

H
e paused. “For close to a year we worked the shit out of the case. We had the ringleader, Krasski”—he pointed at the file—“in our sights. He was a bastard of the highest caliber. He and his posse raped the girls and beat the boys to within an inch of their lives. Pretty soon those poor children were walking and talking robots. The kids that came from Krasski were in high demand. He used violence and the threat of violence against the kids’ families, so none of them would rebel and attempt to escape.”

Jesus. That was unspeakable. I closed my eyes a moment, then refocused on Tyrell, rampant emotion evident in his expression.

“The case was like JT’s obsession. She researched Krasski, followed him, staked out his ass night after night. He was the worst kind of slimeball. The kind of weasel who was wrapped in Teflon—every charge we tried to slap on him somehow slid off. For the life of us we couldn’t get a damn thing to stick.”

“So what happened?”

“The night of the bust … We had it all planned. Every stinking move. We finally managed to pull together all the evidence we needed to make an arrest, which would have shut down a huge Midwest operation.” He inhaled sharply and held his breath for a moment before slowly letting it out through his nose.

I was riveted by Ty’s tale, lost in the middle of some kind of horrifying psychological thriller—a horrifying thriller that involved the love of my life—instead of calmly looking at the hard facts of a real-life case.

“The operation went off without so much as a hiccup. We went in, busted a bunch of assholes, including Krasski. They were in the midst of—” Tyrell’s face hardened. “God, it was awful. Anyway, we rounded up everyone. Not one person got away. JT and I had Krasski between us. We escorted him outside. And as we tried to stuff him in the car, he said something to JT. I missed it, and JT hasn’t repeated it to this day.” Tyrell closed his eyes. “She lost her freaking mind. With Krasski’s hands cuffed, she beat the shit out of him. I needed help to pull her off him, and by then the damage was done. She put him in the hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs and I can’t even remember what else. She nearly killed him. Goddamn it, the asshole deserved it.”

Tyrell slumped back in his chair. His gaze was locked over my shoulder as he relived the memory. “JT was suspended. The case we worked so hard to make against Krasski fell apart.”

Holy shit. “What about the others you arrested?”