The Midtown Murderer (22 page)

Chapter 52

Trent cut across the living room. He had started up the marble staircase, but the big-screen TV caught his attention and he stopped dead, paralyzed by fear.

The words BREAKING NEWS were flashing, and two newscasters were discussing the Midtown Murderer. A split screen spliced in live footage from the gazebo where the early-morning double homicide had occurred.

Trent
relaxed when Rikki’s charcoal sketch aired. The African American dreadlocked youngster had a flat nose and fat lips.

Thank God!

A ticker tape of text read: ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ABOUT THE PIEDMONT PARK MURDERS SHOULD IMMEDIATELY CALL THE ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT OR THE FBI.

Trent decided to duck in
to the hall bathroom before he spoke with Maya. Instead, he caught her off-guard, wrapping a towel around her waist. Right before his glasses fogged up he saw a sexy body. He hastily backed out and blurted, “I am so so sorry.”

“It’s
alright, Trent,” she said in a low voice. “You didn’t know.”

A minute later she stepped out in the hallway and knotted the sash on her terry-cloth dressing gown. Her hair was wet and combed and Trent could see her white scalp through the furrows. She held out her arms and Trent hugged her
; she was warm and smelled of vanilla.

He
gently pushed away and looked into her teary eyes. “Maya,” he said tenderly, “how are you holding up?”

She gripped his shirt and said, “I would have never made it without the Clays
; they have been immensely kind. Now come in my room and talk with me.”

She sat on the edge of the twin bed and put her elbows on her knees. Dark shadows ringed her eyes and pain showed in lines at the corners of her mouth
; she dabbed her nose with a Kleenex. “Are you any closer to finding Chloe?” she asked anxiously.

Trent walked to an
old world writing desk and poured two cups of tea from a porcelain container. He handed her a floral-patterned cup and saucer and said, “I can’t tell you what I have discovered; please trust me.”

She nodded. Holding the saucer in her lap, she sipped the tea.

He walked to a bay window and sat in a built-in bench seat covered with plush pillows. Passing the cup beneath his nose and breathing in the fragment steam he said, “I was wondering if there were any new thoughts or memories you’ve had about Dr. Lynn. It could help my investigation.”

“
There was something I mentioned to Inspector Priest,” she said, placing her cup in the tiny saucer then rested a splayed hand on her thigh. “But all he wanted to talk about was the park shooting and the Apostles.”

“What was it?”

“I stopped in Dr. Lynn’s clinic last week,” she said, raising her fingers one at a time to examine her long, graceful nails. “That was the day I had planned to tell Jack I was moving out.”

“And?”

“While I was waiting in the lobby for Jack, a big baldheaded man came in and dropped off a black pit-bull; I think the dog’s name was Chopper.”

Trent’s heart raced. “Was he
Jack’s friend?”

She shook her head
. “Quite the opposite, I’m sure.”

“How so?”

“Jack was coming through the swinging door behind the receptionist’s desk, but when he saw the biker he quickly disappeared down the stairs.”

“Why on earth would he do that?”

“Obviously he was scared.”

“Had you ever seen the man?”

“No. Just that one time.”

“What happened next?” Trent
asked.

“
After the receptionist took the dog, Dr. Lynn and the biker walked out the door into the foyer. They probably went up to Dr. Lynn’s apartment. Jack said he lives upstairs.”

“What did the man look like?”

She shivered and said, “Creepy. His arms and neck were covered with hideous dragon tattoos; he was as weird as Jack had become.”

“Really,” Trent said with genuine interest. “Would you happen to recall what he was driving?”

“Sure. A big shiny motorcycle with high handlebars.”

Trent drained the last of his tea and stood. Then he set the cup on the tray. “Thanks
, Maya. Keep praying for Chloe. I’ll call tomorrow.”

Maya rose to her feet and threw her arms around Trent. She pressed herself against hi
s chest and held him as if she were clinging to life itself. “Please, you must find my daughter.”

“Tomorrow, Maya
,” he said softly. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Trent
walked out and closed the door behind him.

#

He left the Clay’s house, spun his iPhone into the lake, then drove his Ducati to City Hall. Pretending to be a sub-contractor for the Midtown Alliance Sewer Renovation Project, he procured the sewer-system blueprints he needed.

Now it was dark out and
he had an urgent need for a cup of coffee. Yawning and bleary-eyed, he crossed the street to an all-night restaurant tucked away between the bus terminal and a performing arts center. Its neon sign looked faded under the high bright stars of the Atlanta night sky. He went in and looked around at the people in there-bus drivers, delivery men, pimps, and night-shift workers. The air was laden with coffee and the sweet smell of doughnuts.

The meteorologist on the TV forecast more
snow and claimed it was the coldest Christmas week in Atlanta since 1972. Who believes the weatherman? Trent thought, as he poured over the sheaf of blueprints. He sipped his coffee and hoped the bitter cold would cut the Friday night pedestrian crowd down to a trickle.

The door opened and two Midtown patrolmen walked in. They pulled off their
heavy coats and sat behind Trent. The waitress stopped and they ordered donuts and coffee.

“Best Bavarian cream in town,” a voice said.

The other voice said, “Chocolate frosted are twenty percent off.”

“
Tonight we gotta be on the lookout for that Palmer guy.”

“
I want to shake his hand. Give him a fucking medal for every gangster he kills.”

“
I think he’s up to nine; if he makes it to ten, the mayor should give him a gold key to the city.”

“Plenty others around here need killing.”

“Agreed. Hey, I never see Radcliff anymore; how’s he holding up?”

Trent stared out the storefront window at the
gunmetal gray buildings and eavesdropped.

“Hard to tell
. Guy’s a workaholic; can’t even get him out for a cold beer. Runs a yard business on his days off, is what I hear.”

“Jesus. First his daughter, then his wife. Can you imagine how he felt? Must still feel? Talk about some bad business.”

“If that was bad, I’d hate to see awful,” the man said sadly.

“What did I learn from that? Momma and I will be moving our kids out
of this good-for-nothing town.”

“That’s sage advice.”

Trent finished his coffee and pulled on his coat and hat. Bracing himself for the wind, he made his way to the Atlanta Public Library. He had planned to excavate information on meth labs but decided instead to study the floor plans at Lynn’s historic house.

He made copies of the
information he needed then walked over to a stand-alone computer and typed a string of words into Google to see what popped up. Google gnawed at the search query, then presented the results.

He
sat back and laughed. “Damn internet,” he muttered. “If you know the slightest bit about a person . . .”

He
pulled on his coat and stepped outside. He felt surprisingly alert and refreshed as he mingled with the over-coat wearing, briefcase-toting crowd. He knew he was very close to finding Chloe.

Chapter 53

Later t
hat evening, Trent stood under a dead street light at the corner of Peachtree and Third. He was alone except for several pigeons and a skinny man bundled into an overcoat and scarf leaning against a chain-link fence. The globular street lamp flared off the shiny wine bottle the hobo was holding.

A new moon had risen, and in the transparency of the night he could
clearly see Lynn’s property across the street. The gate was locked and strung with colorful lights. A single light shone from a second-floor window. Barking came from the street-level barred windows. Trent was reasonably sure that the animals were the only occupants.

H
is face was stiff and his fingers numb; he had to move soon. He was still wondering how to get in when a technician backed a Southern Bell telephone repair truck onto the sidewalk behind the FOX Theater that was adjacent to Lynn’s fence.

The man
crawled out of the cab and studied his paperwork. Releasing a steel support leg from one side of the vehicle, he locked it in place and repeated the procedure on the other side. Then he opened a control box at the back of the truck and manipulated a lever. A telescoping arm with a deep plastic basket attached to the end swung level from the top of the truck and stopped next to a telephone pole. Then the man locked the truck and ducked into an Irish pub.

Trent dashed over and stood under the basket.
Grabbing the lip with both hands, he hoisted himself up and threw a leg over the side. He dropped into the basket and waited for it to quit rocking back and forth. Then he peeked out. No one was interested in his activities.

On the side of the basket was a control box with two levers. Trent nudged the top lever and the basket
rose a foot; he toggled the lower lever and the basket swung to the left.

He p
ositioned himself over the fence and dropped from the basket. His ankle gave a stab of pain, but he ignored it and dashed to the front door. It was locked. He ran around back, but a giant padlock deterred him.

Trent edged down the side of the house
, relieved to find old double-hung windows. The curtains inside were frayed and gray with dirt. He removed the screen from the kitchen window; it had a simple latch on the inside that held the two parts together. The window halves were jammed, so he put the heels of his hands on the top crosspiece of the upper window, leaned, and pumped downward with his triceps. That popped the catch, and the old paint and years of rust gave way and the window scraped loudly open.

A striped cat, who saw opportunity in Trent’s deceit watched from his perch under an overhanging eve. Trent had started to
snake-crawl in when the astute cat, timing his jump perfectly, landed on his back. The cat wanted in, of course, and Trent tried to shake him off, but to no avail. He rode in with Trent then walked onto the kitchen counter.

Trent quickly displayed his lack of burglary skills by knocking a few dishes
from the counter to the floor. The breaking of saucers and cups terrified him, but he doubted the sounds had carried to the street.

He closed the window
so it would look normal from the outside then turned to study where he was. He was in a kitchen that would have been a modern marvel in the Roosevelt administration; there was a turret-topped G.E. refrigerator and an ancient Magic Chef range with an encrusted oven door. He searched the kitchen and tiny living-room with a mini Maglite flashlight but couldn’t find what he was looking for.

It was damn cold in the house. He turned up the thermostat before he
started up a narrow, dusty staircase. At the top he stepped onto threadbare carpeting in a short hallway with peeling wallpaper. There were two doors to his left. He peered into the first door with his flash and saw a small bedroom. A large dust sheet was draped over the furniture like a tent whose support poles had been removed.

The second room was a dark confusion of still shadows and silence.
A dusk-caked window cast a murky shaft of streetlight onto an old bed, a table, and a chair. This was where Lynn lived.

Trent
made his way around stacks of boxes and books with his light and looked through the closet. He found an assortment of oddments mixed in with the rumpled T-shirts, underwear and socks, but what he wanted wasn’t there.

Dejected, he pulled out an empty suitcase and found a double-handled doctor
’s bag in the corner. He thought it was quite heavy; so he dumped the medical supplies onto the bed.

He worked his fingers around the inside and pe
eled back a false bottom. And there he found it. A Smith & Wesson revolver was protecting a half-dozen needles, a few syringes, and a Ziploc bag full of white powder.

He moistened a finger
tip and touched the flake to his tongue. Heroin, he said to himself, pulling a face. Maybe ten grand’s worth.

He wondered how deep Lynn was in with the gangsters. How much he knew about the crooked cops. Well, there was one
way to find out. He took the bag downstairs and fed the cat a bowl of milk. Then he lighted a cigarette and sat at a small kitchen table.