Tnt

(Author's note: this story deals with some very gritty and harsh subject matter. This is not for those looking for a straightforward sex story. There are many themes that some people might find objectionable, but to reveal them might give away parts of the story prematurely. If you continue reading, please keep this warning in mind.)

(This is the third of an eight-part series.)

Part Three

"Might have another one for you."

Riaz scowled at the captain's words as he and June stood in the small office of their immediate superior. "Another what?" he asked, arms folded defensively across his broad chest.

The captain stared tiredly beneath a grey-haired brow. "Another body. Might be linked to the DB you picked up on Monday."

Riaz's brow furrowed. "How?"

"Young woman. Strangled and dumped. Recent sexual activity." The captain pushed a file across his desk, which was quickly taken up by June.

Riaz narrowed his eyes in thought. "You talking about the burned body found this morning?"

The captain nodded.

June flipped through the file, her expression stoic as she glanced through the crime scene pictures. "But the Mills woman wasn't burned," she said.

"Go see the ME," the captain directed. "I think you might be interested."

* * * *

In the sterile, pale-lit cavern of the the medical examiner's environment, Riaz and June once more faced the round-bodied coroner over a stainless steel table. The white sheet covering the body between them was darkened in spots.

"You really wanna see this?" the examiner asked.

Riaz nodded curtly. June said nothing.

"Okay . . . ." With a flourishing flutter, the sheet was drawn back, revealing the charred remains beneath. A strong scent suddenly swirled through the air.

"Oh, God," June commented, slapping a hand to her mouth and taking a step back. Riaz seemed unaffected other than a twitch of his broad nose.

"Told you it wasn't pretty," said the examiner.

June fought down the impulse to retch as she stared at the thing that had once been a human being upon the table. "It . . . it smells like . . . ."

"Bacon," Riaz said with a short nod, his features dark. "Why don't you wait outside?"

". . . sure . . . ."

As June headed out the door, Riaz addressed the examiner with penetrating eyes. "So, tell me how this relates to Kaylee Mills."

The woman smiled, almost proudly. "The main thing that tipped me off was that she was strangled by a polyester fabric, just like your first DB. The burn job was definitely amateur," she said. "Fire took off any surface evidence, but it takes a while to cook off certain membranes . . . like those in the mouth."

"And . . .?"

The frumpy woman reached for a file and flipped it open over the body. "And, I managed to get a sample."

Riaz frowned a moment. "You got a sample from her killer . . . from her mouth?"

"Yup. Semen. Dirty girl. May or may not be viable for a DNA profile; I'm still waiting to hear back from the lab."

Riaz was suddenly interested. He looked over the horribly disfigured remains upon the metal slab. "So my guy's killed again."

"All I see is the same basic M.O.," the examiner said carefully. "Strangles her, dumps her, tries to clean the body."

Riaz ground his teeth. "Two bodies," he said. "Same basic pattern. Great. Now I've got a serial killer on my hands."

The woman threw up her hands. "I can't say one way or the other," she declared. "I just read the evidence."

Riaz nodded, thinking. "Thank you, doctor."

She stared back. "Thank me when I don't have any more bodies like this coming into my lab," she said.

* * * *

Knock knock knock . . . .

A weary, haggard-faced woman in her early forties answered the door. "You cops?" she asked.

"Detective Riaz. This is my partner, June Barret."

The woman's eyes dipped down. She pushed open the door and stepped back. "Come on in," she invited in an emotionless voice.

A minute later, Riaz and June sat upon an aging couch that looked to have been new in the mid-seventies. The walls were plastered with cheap lithographs and pictures framed in imitation wood.

"I tried to raise Sylvia to be a good girl," the woman said, not looking to either detective as she spoke. "You know, she graduated high school in the top ten percent."

June rubbed her hands. "Mrs. Gonzales," she said. "I know this isn't easy for you. But I'm going to ask some very frank questions."

The woman nodded, face inscrutable.

"Sylvia was arrested twice for solicitation, wasn't she?"

Again, the dead girl's mother nodded.

"Was she prostituting herself?"

The woman worked her jaw, breathing in and out through her nostrils. "Sometimes she went out, told me she was just gonna hang out with friends . . . then she was buying new clothes, or she'd be wearing some new God damned necklace or something . . . I . . . I didn't want to know what she was doing. Just hoped she'd be alright."

Riaz suddenly spoke. "Mrs. Gonzales," he said in a forceful tone. "Was Sylvia a prostitute?"

The woman's face contorted, yet she fought against the flood of tears. ". . . yes."

Riaz pressed on. "Do you know where she normally worked?"

She shook her head. "I never asked. I didn't want to know . . . but . . . I've heard she was sometimes seen around the northern part of Roosevelt."

June nodded, making a note. "Did you ever see her with anyone in particular?"

"No. I never really knew who she was hanging around with."

"When was the last time you saw your daughter?"

The woman swallowed thickly. "When she left Monday night," she said. "About nine o'clock. She said she was going to some club. It's what she always says."

"Do you know what club?" asked June.

The woman simply glared.

Blush colored the younger detective's face. "Right. Well, thank you for answering our questions, Mrs. Gonzales." She stood and gave the woman her best reassuring look. "We're going to do everything we can to find who did this."

* * * *

"So, how was that?" June asked as Riaz drove the sedan.

"You're getting better," he remarked. "You showed the right amount of sympathy, kept to the facts."

June smiled. "Cool. I might be a real detective yet."

Riaz allowed himself a small chuckle. "Just stop throwing up when you see dead bodies."

June's face fell. She looked sheepish. "Sorry about that."

He gave her a quick but reassuring wink. "First one's free," he said. "After that, I put in for a new partner."

She blinked. "Are you serious?"

Riaz chuckled dryly.

* * * *

Armed with a pair of Sylvia Gonzales' prom pictures, the detectives decided to split up. There were two main avenues where prostitutes plied their trade, making it simple to divide the labor. June took Presa, which bordered the park within which the dead woman had been found, while Riaz was left with Roosevelt, lined with mainly commercial businesses.

Riaz scowled as he drove. Returning to Roosevelt, with the intention of looking for streetwalkers, rekindled a sour flame. It had been more than twenty years since his days on the vice squad. He would rather have left them to the erosion of time.

He spied a borderline attractive Hispanic woman who gave him a hopeful look as she sat at a bus stop. That was a common tactic for prostitutes, Riaz knew; they could appear to be waiting for the bus, and use that as defense if they were questioned.

Riaz made sure he made eye contact as the sedan rolled by, then turned onto a side street and stopped. Moments later, she approached. He had his badge ready.

The woman tugged on the passenger-side door and slid inside, then froze when she saw the detective's badge. "No-no-no-no," she sputtered rapidly, wagging a finger. "I ain't done nothing wrong,

cabron

."

"Relax," barked the detective. "I'm not vice. I'm not gonna take you in. Just wanna know if you've seen this girl around here." He held up the picture.

The woman barely glanced at it. "I don't know nobody, motherfucker," she spat, then stepped out and slammed the door.

Riaz sighed.

This is going to be a long night

, he thought.

* * * *

The length of Presa that was commonly prowled by prostitutes was fairly short, consisting of less than ten city blocks. It began with a trio of cheap motels and ended with houses from the forties fronting the street. Interspersed were a few dive bars and a mechanics shop; the latter was closing down for the day as June strolled past.

A pair of young women lingered outside one of the bars as the detective approached. Both looked to be in their early to mid-twenties, Hispanic, clad in tight jeans and somewhat revealing tops.

"Hey, girls, got a sec?"

They looked June over with dubious, amused eyes. "What the fuck do you want,

weda

?"

She smirked and flashed her badge. "Answers," she said, then produced a picture of the victim. "You know this girl?"

One of the streetwalkers rolled her eyes and turned away. "Fucking vice," she muttered.

"No, I'm not vice," June retorted. "Homicide. A girl was killed last night. You hear about that?"

"I heard about it," the other girl said, looking at the picture. A glimmer of fear danced in her eyes. "Is that her?"

"Yeah. Do you know her?"

The prostitute made a face. "Maybe . . . I don't know. I just keep to my own shit, you know?"

June pressed a little. "Look, if you've seen her around, especially last night--"

"We wasn't out last night,

byatch

," snapped the other girl, grabbing her friend's arm. "Come on. We ain't got time for this shit."

The second girl gave June a sheepish look as she allowed herself to be led away. June huffed in exasperation, then took a breath and kept walking.

* * * *

Girl after girl approached his car, and upon the revelation that Riaz was a cop, most clammed up and looked for the earliest opportunity to leave. After more than an hour, he was fighting off the frustrated urge to call it a night and head home. But a single glance to the pretty face in the photograph he held compelled him to continue.

Outside a run-down business park, Riaz pulled to the curb to allow a wild-haired brunette, bedecked with freckles across her face, to slip into his car.

"Hey, sexy guy," she chirped, already leaning across the console between the front seats, her hand gliding across his thigh. "What you looking for?"

Jaw set, Riaz held up both the picture of Sylvia Gonzales and his badge in one hand. "I wanna know about her," he said curtly.

The hooker jerked her hand back, but unlike the others, actually looked at the picture. Her eyes flickered back and forth between it and Riaz. She gave him a defensive look. "You vice?"

Riaz shook his head. "Homicide," he said. "That girl was found dead this morning in the park off Presa. You know her?"

She ground her teeth. "Yeah, I know her."

The detective read the woman's face. "See her last night?"

She took in a shuddering breath, let it out. "Yeah. We work the same walk sometimes," she revealed. "Talked sometimes. We were pretty cool, know what I mean?"

Riaz shifted, leaning closer. "You see her get picked up last night?"

Slowly, the prostitute nodded. "Yeah. Some dude in a black SUV. We been talking a few minutes before. Usual shit. I went down the street, she was, like, a block up. I saw the dude stop for her, and she got in."

"Black SUV," Riaz prompted. "Chevy? Honda?"

"Fuck, I don't know," the woman said. "I didn't look that close."

Riaz eased back into his seat.

Great. Black SUV. That should narrow it down

, he thought dejectedly.

"Alright. Thanks," he said curtly.

The woman looked around outside the sedan, then licked her lips suggestively. "Hey, uh . . . free blowjob for homicide?" she offered. "Maybe you put in a good word with vice for me?"

He turned his head to glare at her. "Get out of my car," he growled.

The streetwalker threw up her hands. "Okay, okay, was just asking . . . ." she trailed off as she stepped from the car.

Riaz took out his phone as the passenger door closed and the hooker walked away. He tapped on the screen, then held it up to his ear. It rang three times before his partner's voice filled his ear.

"Hey, Riaz," June answered in a strangely upbeat tone. "I was just about to call you. Got something here."

He perked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm at the Rambler Motel on Presa. Get over here."

"On my way."

* * * *

June was waiting just inside the doorway of the motel's small detached office, which occupied the corner of the parking lot opposite the L-shaped, single-story structure. Riaz parked in one of many free spaces and approached his partner.

"She's a handful," June warned as Riaz strolled past and into the office.

Riaz just smirked. The cloistered room reeked of cigarettes. There was just enough room for two or three people to stand before a closed-off counter with a thick plastic window. Beyond the window was a heavyset woman with stringy grey hair fried from a lifetime of chemical use. Her smoker's wrinkles were so pronounced it looked as if her lips were about to turn in on themselves.

She glared at Riaz as he approached the window, diverting her attention from an old television shoved into the corner of her booth-like enclosure. "You the other cop, huh? Your dyke partner said you'd be right over. Stop for some Muscle Milk along the way?"

Riaz cocked his head, assessing the rude woman. "When was the last time this place was inspected?" he asked.

The woman's eyes bulged with indignance. "Oh, don't you start that shit! I been running this place for thirty-two years! I--"

"Ma'am."

"What!"

"Shut up."

She glared back, but the dark, penetrating look upon Riaz's face forced her into silence. She dropped her gaze.

"Now," Riaz said calmly. "If you would like to explain to me what is so important here, I will be more than happy to listen."

The woman worked her jaw for a moment, composing her thoughts while forcing down her pride. "Like I was telling your partner," she said, struggling to keep her voice level. "I had some uptown pretty boy come in last night around ten. He said he wanted a room. I said it was thirty bucks. He paid cash. I gave him a key. I--"

Riaz interrupted. "What makes you think he was uptown?"

The woman scowled. "What I get around here is wetbacks, spics and niggers driving El Caminos and old DeVilles, and that's when they driving anything at all. Most'a them don't speak anything that even sounds like English. That boy last night was as clean and white as could be, and he wasn't wearing no Goodwill specials, either."

"What did he look like?"

"Didn't your dyke partner tell you?" the woman asked, then shook her head as she reached for a pack of cigarettes. "He was a tall, thin white boy. Hair like a black mop. Nice shirt, nice jeans,

damn

nice ass."

Riaz glanced briefly to June, who smiled knowingly. Though the description of the man was vague, it was close enough to the one Leticia Covens provided to be encouraging.

"Oh, and he had a tattoo on his arm," the woman added. "Looked like a snake."

"A snake," Riaz repeated. "Where on his arm?"

"Like, all the fucking way down. Good ink; not that bullshit prison crap."

"Did he pay cash?" Riaz asked after mentally cataloging the information.

She answered through a cloud of thick grey smoke that swirled within her enclosure. "Do I look like I got a credit machine?" she snapped, then took up an aged and stained ledger from beneath the counter and slid it through the small slot beneath the window. "He did sign in, though. Third name from the end on the last page."

Riaz opened the ledger, finding the most recent set of entries conveniently enough thanks to a pen demarcating it. He looked at the third from the last entry. "Thomas Jones," he said aloud. "Signed in at 9:54 p.m. Room four."

"Yeah, that was him," the woman said. "So, you wanna know what happened, or what?"

Riaz lifted his eyes. "What happened?"

"Okay, so, this morning, the room four key's in the dropbox," the woman rattled, every word riding a caustic cloud of smoke. "So I send my spic housekeeper to go clean up. She comes back and tells me the sheets are missing. I tell her to check the garbage, since some guys jizz up the sheets with whatever hooker they picked up and get all embarrassed about it for some fucking reason. She comes back and says she only found a pillow case. So I--"

Riaz arched an eyebrow and interrupted again. "Do you have it?"

The woman frowned. "What, the pillow case? Why the fuck you want that?"

"Humor me."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "I told my spic housekeeper to put it in the wash."

Riaz's face darkened. "Did she?"

"Fuck if I know. Lazy little bitch. You know, I bet she does some streetwalking, too."

Riaz struggled to keep calm in the face of the woman's racist vitriol. "Where do you wash your sheets?"

"Housekeeping room is the door between seven and eight," she said.

Riaz looked expectant. "We'll need the key."

With a huff, the woman reached below the counter and came up with a ring of keys. She slapped them on the counter between them. "The bronze key with the red dot on it."

Riaz smiled. "By any chance, is your housekeeper still around?"

"Better be," the woman spat. "She gets room one as part of her pay."

Riaz snatched up the keys and tossed them to June, who snagged them from the air.

"On it," June said, quickly heading out the door.

Riaz turned back to the motel owner one last time. "By any chance, did you see what Thomas Jones was driving?"

"Yeah, I did," she said. "I bet I even got it on my security camera. It was a black Toyota. One'a them Rav-whatevers."

Riaz smiled slowly. "I would really appreciate a look at the tape," he said.

* * * *

Despite the fact that the enclosure within the office was like a concentration camp gas chamber due to the motel owner's chain smoking, Riaz endured it as he watched the security tape. The system was technologically ancient, recorded on VHS cassette, and Riaz assumed the poor quality was due to the tape having been repeatedly recorded over.

Still, it gave him what he needed. He fast-forwarded through the tape from where it began just after eight in the evening, bringing it back to regular speed when the time stamp along the bottom of the screen read 9:51.

"Camera's on the roof, here," the woman explained. "I got it set up so I only need the one to see all the doors. Well, almost."

Riaz did not respond as he watched the screen. The angle of the camera did indeed cover almost the entire parking lot and all of the doors to the motel rooms . . . except for the first five doors.

At the time stamp of 9:53, the top of a black vehicle appeared on the bottom part of the screen. The angle did not allow Riaz to see who got out. Two minutes later, the vehicle -- a black SUV with the distinctive Toyota symbol on the back hatch -- pulled forward slightly, then turned into a parking spot just slightly off-camera, where Riaz deduced room four lay. He could not see who got in or out of the vehicle.

Riaz watched for another minute, conscious that the odious woman was also watching, and standing rather close as she puffed on her cigarette. He cleared his throat loudly to give her a hint; she did not seem to catch it.

He pushed the fast-forward button and watched as, at the time of 10:02, the black Toyota pulled away and drove off-camera.

"That's it," the motel owner remarked.

"Not, it's not," growled Riaz. "I'm assuming he came back." He continued to watch as the frames sped by.

Suddenly, the SUV reappeared about an hour later, and Riaz jabbed the play button to bring the video back to real time. This time, the SUV did not pull into the parking spot as it had before; instead, the driver pulled the vehicle in, then backed into the space.