Taunting (The Flint Files Book 1) Page 7

  “Yes, I graduate in May. I’m doing clinical training at St. Swithin’s for now. It’s fascinating work. I’ve enjoyed the psychiatric nursing most. Doctors and therapists spend far less time with the patients than the nurses do, and we have a real opportunity for impact.” The student nurse was enthusiastic about her chosen profession and showed it.

  “Mental health services have to improve if we’re going to be a truly civilized society. In my day mental illness was looked on as shameful, and people didn’t get the kind of help they needed. Joel’s mother, Eleanor, was a wonderful woman and I loved her like a sister. Her bipolar disorder wasn’t diagnosed until she was in her late thirties, and treatment helped her immensely. She had a couple of happy years before her tragic death.” Carol noticed Joel’s discomfort and put her hand on his arm

  “I’m sorry, dear,” she said to Joel. “I should remember that discussing her illness has always upset you. I’ll not mention it again.”

  She turned back to Veronica. “Joel tells me you’re going to DaLounge tonight. I make it a point to get there during the day on weekends when you never know what will show up. It’s kind of a grab-bag, and sometimes it’s not all that good. Sometimes it’s fabulous, though, and the good performances outnumber the bad.”

  “Yes, I make Joel take me there at least every other week. I just found out who the owner is, a young man named Alex DeLauder. You probably knew of his mother, Dana, who started and ran the place. Poor Alex waits tables and cleans up while he’s learning how to run the business.

  “Unfortunately, he has a crush on me. You read about that kidnapping ring last year?” Carol nodded her head. “Well, when Alex discovered I was the one to treat him on the spot. I got lucky with an off-the-wall diagnosis and he decided I had saved his life. I did no such thing, but he’s been kind of like a puppy dog ever since. The first time we went there Joel tried to bribe him to leave us alone, but he’s the owner and that’s not going to work.” Veronica managed to look both saddened and slightly amused at the same time.

  “He’d better keep his damned hands off you.” That was from Joel, and Veronica thought she heard genuine menace in his voice. Can’t be, she thought.

  “Joel, I’m sure Miss Meritt can fend for herself.” Carol had heard the same menace. She’d been hearing changes of tone in Joel’s voice lately, sometimes sounding inappropriately aggressive, other times strangely sad. She had a sudden flashback to Eleanor at Joel’s age. Maybe it’s nothing.

  They finished dinner with small talk about Carol’s work with the church, Joel’s law studies, what would happen with Fitch and Clemons, and Veronica’s clinical training. When they finished Carol assured them she could clean up, they should run along and enjoy the music at DaLounge.

  Veronica protested she could help clean up, but Carol insisted. Joel was saying nothing, just got his coat and Veronica’s and helped her into it. Once in the car Joel smashed his hands against the steering wheel.

  “That bitch! There was nothing wrong with my mother. Carol just didn’t think she was good enough for my father.” He put the car in gear and tore off. Veronica decided silence was the best option and said nothing until they were seated in DaLounge.

  The jazz group was good. Veronica tried talking with Joel about the group and its music, but she got no response beyond a grunt. For the first half hour Joel sat stiff as a board staring at his drink. Finally Joel calmed down and began to talk with Veronica.

  The last hour was a pleasant time, and it seemed that Joel was out of his funk. In fact, he became quite animated and told Veronica he wanted to dance. There was no dance floor at DaLounge, and the whole purpose of live jazz was to listen. What Veronica had hoped would be a pleasant evening was turning stranger and stranger. As they were leaving Veronica said that she had an early morning and needed to go to her own place for the night. Joel’s “Sure” was surly at best. He let her open her own door, and when he got in he slammed the driver’s door. They drove in silence to her apartment building.

  “Good-night.” That was Joel. Not a good night kiss, nothing. He stayed in the car while she got out, then burned rubber down the road.

  Veronica wondered, not for the first time, what got into Joel Vanderveer from time to time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The detectives finally got the U.S. Government to spring Steve Clemons’s foreign travel information. It seemed they had filed the wrong form the first time. So, they filed the right form the second time but it was returned. The request had already been denied because they used the wrong form, so they couldn’t use the initial request form, they had to file an appeal of the denial. Seven weeks after the first request had been filed they got the records.

  “The guy sure didn’t spend his money on travel,” Silverstein noted. “Toronto twice, Acapulco four times and a very hazy trip to Amsterdam at the age of nineteen.”

  Dutch and Canadian authorities replied promptly. There was no information to report. Steve Clemons had stayed in mid-range hotels in Toronto and a youth hostel in Amsterdam. The hostel shared a building with a café specializing in hashish, but that was pretty typical in Amsterdam at the time.

  The Mexican authorities denied any criminal or other records in or around Acapulco for Steven Clemente. Eventually they got the name right and faxed over the cover sheet for a civil suit filed against Steven Clemons ten years ago. The woman was alleging paternity. Ho hum. Several detectives looked at each other with a “there but for the grace of God go I” look.

  “They don’t say anything about what happened with the case. I’ll give them another nudge.” Silverstein was persistent, a major part of his appeal. Another week and they had the disposition of the case. It had simply been dropped. Two weeks of calls with Acapulco police who always seemed to be on break hit the jackpot. It had been dropped because the plaintiff was dead in a dramatic suicide-murder of herself and the newborn.

  Mullalley had his stressor. The questions now are how that led to murder, and whether it might provide a clue to the accomplice.

  Mullalley dropped a copy of his report on Goldberg’s desk. “It’s definitely the murder-suicide, no doubt about it. I just don’t see how it led to serial killings, and it doesn’t explain an accomplice. But I think it’s a starting place for both.”

  Daryl Grzgorczyk was waiting for results. Not just progress, but results. This shit had gone on too long. He knew the value of progress. The problem is that the real value of progress was the result at the end of the road. And this road did not appear to have an end.

  “Thanks for the report, Doc.” Lieutenant Grzgorczyk was used to working with police psychologists, and had a healthy respect for their capabilities. And their limitations. Right now, the limitations were at the forefront. Goldberg entered without knocking, unusual for her. The Lieutenant saw the storm clouds in his detective’s eyes and prepared for a thunderclap.

  “Doc, did you notice anything in the dead Mexican woman’s photo? Like, maybe, that she was black?” Mullalley just stared at Goldberg.

  “So what? There are white Mexicans, mestizos, Indians and some blacks. What’s the significance?” The psychologist should have spent a bit more time reading the case files and a bit less signing books.

  “Three of the murders stood out due to the rage involved. Most of the killings were fairly simple stabbings, done dispassionately. Three involved actual rage. All three victims were black.” Goldberg’s eyes were launching daggers at the shrink.

  “Fuck me,” was all Mullalley could say.

  “I’d rather not. I prefer my lovers with more attention to detail.” The scorn in Goldberg’s voice was unmistakable.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The psychologist was a fucking idiot. Joel Vanderveer knew why all these people were dead. Money. Pure and simple. “And the numbskull missed the part about the black victims being the object of rage. Steve Clemons doesn’t like blacks, period. Never been a black attorney in his firm, and the only black employee is a clerk.”


  Veronica had eaten dinner in Joel’s apartment and they were talking over desert. Joel was worked up about the investigation. He was involved in it, and it seemed to him that they were spinning their wheels. They knew who did it, all they had to do was get him back to the U.S. and put him on trial.

  The student nurse was reserving judgment. Maybe the paternity suit followed by murder-suicide had sparked the killing spree, she wasn’t convinced. Perhaps his dead lover’s race had something to do with the rage directed at blacks, but she needed more than speculation.

  Veronica had done some training on the mental health ward at St. Swithin’s and knew that psychology was an inexact science. The first time she heard of a patient’s suicide shortly after discharge she went to Cheryl Longfellow, chief trauma nurse and her mentor. “How can this happen?”

  Cheryl was in her fifties. She’d seen bodies that should have been on an autopsy table come to life, and people who seemed perfectly fine with typical test results suddenly keel over dead. She knew the deepest, darkest secret of modern medicine: Shit happens.

  “What was the result of his blood test for major depression?” The young nursing student knew already that there was no such blood test and said so.

  “OK, what about the CT scan of his suicidal ideation?” That was not possible to do, and Veronica Meritt wondered where this was going.

  “Honey, you told me once you wanted to go into psychiatric nursing. In physical medicine we get people with perfectly normal blood tests, all kinds of X-Rays and CT scans and biopsies, showing nothing, who just fucking die. We’re at least two decades ahead of the mental health folks and we get unpleasant – and occasionally pleasant – surprises every day. There just is no way to know for sure right now. Sadly, there may never be.”

  Veronica asked Joel if there was any evidence of racism apart from the lack of black employees at his law firm. This was the Deep South, after all, and segregated workplaces were still not unusual. And something was bothering her, she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Not really. Well, he did tell me once that when the schools were integrated most of his friends’ parents had pulled them out of public schools and sent them to private all-white schools. Steve’s parents didn’t do that, and he was beaten up by a bunch of black thugs at school.” Joel took Veronica’s hand. “Enough of that. You ready for your other desert?” He was leering, and Veronica decided to forget about something bothering her.

  The sex was intense, more so than on previous occasions. And, it wasn’t a good intense, either. It almost seemed that Joel was punishing her. He appeared focused on his own orgasm rather than enjoying the two of them giving pleasure to each other. Veronica put it down to Joel’s frustration with the investigation.

  Veronica Meritt declined an invitation to spend the night. Joel seemed to be in a strange mood, wrapped up in himself and not attentive. That seemed to be happening more often lately. When she got home she took a shower and got in bed. It took her a while to get to sleep because she played the evening’s events over and over in her mind. The love-making wasn’t really love-making at all. It was something different, something more forceful and fierce and aggressive.

  The young student nurse dreamt about Steve Clemons being beaten up by a gang of black thugs. Except it was Joel’s face she was seeing, not Steve’s. She had no reason to believe that the law student was a racist, and put the whole thing out of her mind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Miguel Montañez was a loner, unusual for an eight-year old boy. Perhaps not so unusual considering that Miguel’s family lived in the nearly deserted north part of Cozumel Island. There were few other children nearby so Miguel learned to enjoy solo activities. Such as swimming in remote cenotes or exploring the jungle that covered more than 90% of the island. Tourists flocked to the big city and to the south and southwest shores. The remainder of Cozumel was largely empty.

  The birds’ sudden flight scared Miguel. The wings of a carrion crow are enormous, and four took to the air when he entered the clearing. They had been feeding on the corpse of an adult coatimundi. Being eight, and fascinated with dead animals, Miguel approached the coati. He used a stick to move it, and uncovered something else. It was a bone, and seemed to belong to a larger animal. Miguel used his stick to dig around until more of the bone was revealed. That’s when he screamed.

  “¡"Dios Mio!” There was a hand at the end of the arm bone. A human hand. Other human bones had also been disturbed by the large birds. Miguel ran to tell his mother.

  “Detective Flint, please. Tell him it is Stewart Swain, and it’s urgent.” The priest tapped a pen against his teeth, anxious to reach Danny Flint. It was another murder, one that had been listed as a disappearance.

  “Flint.” Danny knew not to waste Father Stewart’s time. His parish church was the center of the serial murder investigation occupying all of Danny’s time. The High Profile Crimes squad had other detectives; Martyrs’ Parish only had one priest. “What can I do?”

  “Danny, it’s Stewart Swain. Martha Devereaux just called. Her father, Josh Breckenridge, disappeared six years ago in Mexico on a cruise. His body was unearthed in Cozumel two weeks ago, identified by a serial number on his knee replacement. The local M.E. has ruled it a homicide. Cause of death is not yet determined, but there are nicks from a knife on two ribs.”

  Danny didn’t need to think. “What was the man’s race? And, are there any other injuries?” Goldberg had just put together the information about rage in the murders of African American victims.

  “How did you know? Josh was an African American member of our parish. And, yes, the M.E. says his face was repeatedly kicked and stepped on around the time of his death. We’ll have a service after the remains are returned, of course. And Martha is relieved, not grieving. She gave her father up for dead a year after he disappeared.”

  A few more details and Danny turned over the next steps to Silverstein. NOPD contacted the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, which e-mailed copies of the local medical examiner’s report plus the police report. The local M.E. had already released the body, and it would arrive in New Orleans in about three days. Silverstein got the flight info.

  A call to Martha Devereaux confirmed that her father had disappeared on Cozumel Island in early February 2008 while on a cruise. The cruise line had been apologetic about leaving without him, but they had several thousand other passengers on board, were due in Grand Cayman the next day and another ship would take their place at the pier tomorrow morning. Martha had understood.

  The cruise line promised a copy of its investigation within a week. When it arrived, Silverstein filed it but wasn’t sure why. More effort would probably have been put into finding a library book.

  Chief Medical Examiner Marsten would have somebody meet the plane and take custody of the remains. Silverstein called Martha, who said another day or week or month, or even year, wasn’t going to make any difference now. She’d take care of calling Father Stewart. Martha understood that finding her father’s killer wouldn’t bring him back, but it might save other lives.

  The detective working on Clemons’s time-line was in. After complaining that the High Profile Crime squad could never lay its hands on anything he ever sent them, he had Joel e-mail a copy of Clemons’s February 2008 activities and locations. There was a problem.

  Clemons had not left New Orleans that entire week. A Daily Post article from the day of Breckenridge’s disappearance contained a photo of Clemons receiving some award from the local NAACP. The fact that Fitch and Clemons had never had a black attorney on staff, and its only black employee ever was a part-time clerk, was overlooked. Despite New Orleans’ majority black status. Silverstein actually understood. He’d attended more than one B’nai B’rith award ceremony honoring an anti-Semite.

  It was right there in black and white and ugly and inconvenient. Clemons had not killed Josh Breckenridge. There was an accomplice. The cruise line representative laughed when Nathan Silverstein asked for a com
plete passenger and crew manifest for the voyage in question. That was nine years ago. No chance. Detective Silverstein mentioned that his wife was on the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of New Orleans, and that the cruise line had a ship due in the next morning and it would be a shame if there was some sort of administrative delay, you know. He was promised the manifest within forty-eight hours.

  Silverstein wasn’t married and had no idea if there was a Port Authority for New Orleans, or if it had a Board of Directors. Details, minor details.

  Chapter Twenty

  The judge stared down at the defendant, a look of genuine concern on his face. “Ms. Hudspeth, before I pass sentence, I want to know what arrangements you have made for your son, Gregory.”