Justice for Francesca (Six Paths to Justice #1)

21. Misdirection

21

MISDIRECTION

Francesca

O nce outside of Ortiz’s office, Francesca glanced around. She noticed Calder coming into the bullpen with several file folders. He jerked his head to the right, signaling he wanted her to meet him in the conference room.

As soon as she entered the room, he handed her copies of his most recent medical reports. “I texted Cruz. He’s finishing up with Tripoli. Final reports on Jessa mirror Mila and preliminary findings on Tilly, with one exception.” He played with a corner of a piece of paper sticking out of one of the folders he brought into the room. “You okay?”

She stared at him. Her initial impulse was to spout the usual response. Instead, she found herself confessing the truth. “No. Not even close.” For some reason, she felt lighter. Was this what it was like to have people you could confide in? People you could call friends?

“I’m sorry. It had to be rough finding her like that.”

Releasing a shuddering breath, Francesca paged through the report Calder had handed her. “Rougher for Tilly being disposed of like that.” She looked up at him. “Sorry. While that may be true, you were concerned about me, and I shouldn’t have said it.”

“I should be the one apologizing, Frankie. I have a tendency to say things, and sometimes they come out wrong. I blame it on the fact that I can say whatever I want to the bodies in my morgue because they don’t talk back. Not out loud anyway.”

“No real offense taken,” she assured him.

“Who’s offending who?” Cruz entered, shut the door behind him, and exhaled long and hard. Immediately, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his sleeves. “If anyone should be offended, it should be me. Thanks for making my day harder, Frankie,” he grumbled. “Nothing like interviewing your brother and your lover on the same day.”

“You know me. The eternal people pleaser.”

Calder stared at her. Cruz stopped mid-sleeve roll.

“Did you just crack a joke?” Calder asked.

“I definitely heard sarcasm,” Cruz commented.

“I make jokes all the time.”

“No, you don’t. You wield snark. Big difference.” Cruz looked at Calder. “You’re the medical guy. You gonna check for her belly button? Cuz I think aliens took her and switched her out for one of their own.”

“Fuck you, Cruz,” she grumbled.

Now it was Calder’s turn. “I don’t need to check. That’s not Frankie. That’s an alien.”

“Okay, you two have had your yucks. What have you got?”

“Wait!” Cruz held up a hand in her direction. “Before he gets into the medical mumbo jumbo, I need the gossip. What happened with Ortiz?”

“You are more nosey than Mickie.”

Calder looked at Cruz. “At least she didn’t say Mack.”

Cruz snorted. “Truth. Our buddy Dax has it worse than I do.” Looking back at Francesca, he gestured to himself. “FBI agent, remember? You said it yourself. Nosey is part of the job description.”

“Are you done now?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are you done, Calder?”

“Are you done, Cruz?”

“Oh, for the love of… Since I know you’ll just keep hounding me until I tell you, I’ll get it out of the way. I’ve got twenty, maybe thirty minutes before she files that report, and I’m officially off this case, so let’s get going. What have you got?”

A surprised look came across Cruz’s face. “She kicked you off the case?”

“No, I recused myself. Can we please get on with this?”

Calder leaned forward on the table. “You took yourself off the case?”

“Yes. Is there some sort of weird echo chamber going on in here? I recused myself, nonnegotiable, and I asked to take my annual leave rather than get banished to Dallas.” She waved her hand as if negating the information. “Doesn’t matter. We need to focus. I don’t want anyone to be finding Rye or Damaris next, so let’s get to it. Let me help for the next few minutes before my leave is official. What did you find?” she asked Calder.

“Okay. Wow. I’m in shock.”

Francesca waved her hand to get him going forward with his information.

“Yep. Right. Talking fast. Got it. Same results as Mila. High levels of fentanyl, hydrocodone, and alcohol. Overdose as COD.”

“Clearly a pattern. Neither woman was an accidental overdose on the murderer’s part. What else?”

“Jessa’s body had welts and massive bruising to the lower back, buttocks, and thighs. Evidence of the use of an instrument of some kind.”

Francesca scanned his notes as Calder spoke. “Like a paddle?” Calder’s gaze was blank. “She was found attached to a St. Andrew’s cross. A crop, a paddle, a belt, a whip—something—would be a likely implement. What type of instrument?”

“Something compact with surface area to it. The bruising has edges to it.”

“Rounded or squared?”

“Rounded top edges, squared body to it. Rectangular, actually. And long… estimation is about two feet in length? Hard to be exact since her body isn’t wide enough to have a full print of the instrument on her. Just partials. Does the type of instrument matter?”

“It might,” Cruz stated. “According to Tripoli, prior to working at Elysium, she was a member at The Library. Professional dominatrix. No sex. Just humiliation kink. We found her computer and webcam business, and we’re going through her records for clients. She wanted out of that line of work, so he invited her here to be an emcee and host until she figured things out. He said he was pretty sure that when she moved here, she let the bulk of her clients go, keeping only a handful of the more well-financed ones. She told him it was only the webcam business, but maybe she kept a few face-to-face clients as well. If we knew what implement was used, we might be able to eliminate one or more of those men because of their proclivities to what they’ll use in a scene.”

“And paddles, like the type you’re talking about?” Francesca added. “Those require some pretty strong arm muscles to wield them over a prolonged period of time. A whip definitely requires a high level of skill to wield and not slice open the flesh. While she had some lacerations, they weren’t dominating her torture. If they were consistent, or the majority, that would easily eliminate individuals. A smaller paddle, more along the size of a table tennis paddle, or even a crop, requires far less arm strength.”

“So we’re looking for a man who has BDSM knowledge.”

“A really strong woman is possible, but more likely a man.”

Calder shook his head and blinked his eyes a few times. “I always say I’m not surprised by what I see anymore, and then I get surprised.” He scanned his report. “In addition to the bruising, she was beheaded. That was not done by knife—too clean of a cut. Like Mila’s stab wound to the heart, however, that was delivered postmortem.”

“What about the lubricant?” Francesca asked.

“No lubricant was found on Jessa, and her kit came back clean. No evidence of recent sexual activity.”

“So the lubricant on Mila might have been left over from someone else just before she was taken. Or she knew her killer, had sex with him by choice, and then he went to work. When can we expect results on Tilly?”

“Twenty-four hours, especially since we know what to look for. But there’s one thing…” Calder shifted uncomfortably.

“What?” Cruz asked.

He flashed a look at Francesca that was part pain and part apology.

“What?” she parroted Cruz. “Just tell us.”

“Two of Tilly’s wounds were more traumatic than the others.” He handed them each a folder. “Pictures seven and eight. At first, they looked like all the others. But when Panama tested the swords, she found bleach, so she went back and checked the skin directly around the wounds. Bleach there as well.”

“Fuck,” Cruz whispered.

“She was alive,” Francesca whispered. “That’s what that means, doesn’t it? He cleaned up the blood to hide that.”

Francesca’s eyes closed. She felt bile rise and barely made it to the garbage can in the corner of the room to spill the contents of her stomach. Cruz was kneeling at her side, rubbing gentle circles on her back, murmuring to her. Calder fled the room, then returned shortly after that, handing a cold compress to Cruz for the back of her neck, and he pressed a second to her forehead.

When she’d managed to gather herself, she stood on shaky legs. Calder handed her a bottle of water and another cold paper towel to wipe her face and mouth. While she fixed herself, he took the garbage can from the room to empty it. By the time he returned, she had downed half the water bottle and recovered enough to cross back to her seat and sit.

“Gruesome as the thought is, Frankie, it’s a mistake,” Cruz said.

She nodded in agreement. “He didn’t have enough time to wait for the drugs to work their magic.”

Calder turned to his preliminary report on Tilly. “She had a prescription for temazepam as part of her psychiatric care plan.”

“She still had nightmares from her prior abduction, so she was refusing to sleep,” Francesca surmised.

“Yes,” Calder confirmed. “Tilly was under medical care with benzos for her anxiety. She had a tolerance, so it probably delayed her response to the other drugs. The other two women had no tolerance for drugs in their system. Well, not significant for Mila since she had basically weaned herself off the hydrocodone. Plus, the killer had significantly less time by several hours to enact his plan.”

Rubbing her forehead, Francesca rose from her chair and crossed to contemplate the whiteboard with all of its sticky notes and photographs. The headache blooming was going to be epic.

“Okay. You need a rundown of who was where and when for the last twenty-four hours of the club staff. It’s likely going to eliminate each of them, with the possibility of Triumph being the only outlier, other than Michael. He also has no alibi. He and Tilly allegedly had a disagreement, which is why she sought out Michael.”

“The analysts have the video footage of Triumph’s apartment building. Since he’s the only one who can say where he was, at least having some corroboration of his whereabouts is better than nothing. He’s tech-savvy and could hack into and alter footage if he needed to.”

“You don’t really suspect him though.”

“No. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s though. But listen, something weird is going on, and I’m not going to have time to dive into it. Push them to check that footage and then verify it yourself. Ortiz is bound and determined to make Michael confess to the murders. She’s not even interested in going out and getting evidence and then having him corroborate it. She’s trying to do this the other way round—confession, then verify with evidence.”

Cruz frowned. “That doesn’t sound like her. You think pressure is coming from somewhere up top for her to close this case fast?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, and even then, it doesn’t.” She frowned. Something was poking at her brain, but she couldn’t tease it out. Mentally, she slapped it out of the way. She knew that the harder she tried, the less likely whatever it was would come to her. “I’m missing something,” she whispered. “It’s right there. What the fuck is it?”

Calder continued to flip through his folder on the table in exasperation. “This thing reads like an M. Night Shyamalan script. I’m sure when it’s all done, I’ll be smacking myself in the head with an ‘Of course it was X!’ spilling from my mouth, but I sure can’t see it right now.”

Francesca stilled.

“What is it?” Cruz asked.

“Calder, you’re a genius,” she whispered.

“Thank you,” he quipped, “but I have no idea why.”

“You tripped my brain. There was something I was trying to come up with, but I couldn’t remember. Your movie comment flipped it.”

“You’re welcome?” he replied. “What did I flip?”

“My brain’s light switch.” She turned to face the two men. “Have either of you ever seen the movie The A.B.C. Murders ?” Both men shook their heads, a look of puzzlement on their faces. “Ever read Agatha Christie?” Again, negative shakes. “When I was resting the other day, I picked up a copy of Murder on the Orient Express . I hadn’t read it since I was a kid. We had every one of her books in my house. Mom was a fiend for them, so we all read them at some point or other in our childhood. Christie was the master of red herrings in her murder mysteries.”

“Okay, so what?”

“ The A.B.C. Murders is probably either her second or third most popular book, and it involves an intricate plot that is eerily similar to what we have going on here. What if none of our murders were linked?”

“What do you mean? Of course they’re linked. They’re all connected to the club.”

Francesca began to pace, her hands waving as she spoke. “Think like a murderer for a minute. The crime is rarely about who. It’s always about why . The who is just an unfortunate byproduct of the why. The fact that all three of the victims were connected in some way to Elysium is our only connection, and it’s a surface-level one at that. What if they had no larger connection than that?”

She looked at Cruz. He considered her theory. “You’re saying it was just an easy hunting ground.”

“Not easy. Necessary,” Francesca said. “These women were convenient. Yes, he targeted them, but the only thing they needed to be was attached to Elysium. They were red herrings. Any employees would have worked in the long run.”

“Hello! In the dark here!” Calder called out.

Francesca explained, “A red herring is a common conceit in mystery novels. It’s a purposeful distraction by the author. Shyamalan used the concept in The Sixth Sense . The author purposefully distracts the reader or viewer, leading them astray, and often down an incredibly convoluted path when really the answer is very simple.

“Usually, I know who the murderer is within ten minutes, so I don’t read mysteries or watch them on TV or movies anymore. Shyamalan’s movie, though, is the only movie that’s ever fooled me, and it reminded me of Christie’s books.” Her gaze went inward as she talked. “They both hid their solutions so publicly.”

Whirling around to Cruz, she pointed at him. “If you want to hide a wolf in a field of sheep?—”

“You don’t let the wolf look like itself. You disguise it as a sheep.”

“And if you want to distract someone?” Francesca continued the storyline with Calder.

“Create misdirection, in this case, by putting other actual wolves in the field. Maybe even kill a sheep and make it look like one of them killed it.”

They all paused to look at one another.

“Exactly, and the more misdirections, the better. Or, in this case, a specific murder was hidden inside a series of murders.”

Cruz stood, hands on hips, looking at the whiteboard. Across the top were three pictures—Mila, Jessa, and Tilly—the three victims in order. “This whole thing is a copycat crime based on fiction?”

“I think so, yes. Crazy, but I’d bet my credentials on it.”

“So you’re thinking that only one of the murders is the real one, which is why we’re having such trouble connecting them. The murderer hid the real victim amongst other victims to make it tougher to catch him.” He raised his eyebrows and gave a single head tilt to the right, pursing his lips and blowing out air. “Seems like a lot of work.”

“Not really. If the victims are random, the hardest part is reeling in the victim, which for our man probably wasn’t all that difficult. Mila did business with a lot of people in real estate through her uncle. Pretend to be a buyer. Jessa had a dominatrix business. Pose as a client. Tilly—” Francesca paused, a pang in her chest. She swallowed, then continued, “She did a lot of different jobs at the club. He could have met her disguised as a patron.”

“If we go with that premise, we’ve got Mila, Jessa, and Tilly. Which one is the ‘real’ murder?” Cruz asked.

“Maybe none of them,” Francesca said softly.

Cruz frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What if the order is missing a body?”

“I’m not tracking.”

“What if there was supposed to be a murder, but the murder didn’t happen? What if the order was Mila, Jessa, Michael , Tilly? If someone was hiding in that house before I got there, and if Michael really was a somewhat permanent resident before their breakup, whoever attacked would likely have known that. Michael had shown up there several nights, according to the tip we got. If they were hunting Michael, they might have known he was going to return there again, going after whatever he was searching for. I showed up almost immediately inside after him. What if they didn’t have time to act because I interrupted?”

Cruz stared at her. Then he looked at Calder, and after a weighty look, both gazed at her. “Or what if Michael wasn’t the intended victim that night?” Cruz asked.

“Who else would it have been? It was only me and Michael in the house that night.” Her eyes went wide with shock as soon as she said it. “There’s no way the murderer could have known I’d be there that night.”

Cruz rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, maybe not one hundred percent sure. All it would take is for someone to check the area and see who was sent to look into it. If they also lured Michael there, knowing you at all, they’d know you would definitely follow him inside. If by chance it wasn’t you, they could try and lure you out another way on another day.”

“Why would anyone want to murder me? I’m not connected to Elysium. It’s ridiculous!”

He started ticking off possible suspects. “Yes, you are. You knew people who worked there, including your brother. You were linked to Tripoli in particular. Maybe there wasn’t a relationship until recently, but I’ve read your reports from The Library. He’s everywhere as a source of information for you on the case. If someone found you were working here, there’s the connection.”

“But I came here because of the first murder. I wasn’t here first. There’s no way anyone could know I would be assigned Mila’s murder.”

“They could,” Cruz added. “Someone within the FBI, as far-fetched as that may sound, or from New York City when you were a cop.” His gaze willed her to come to the same conclusion he had.

Calder’s stare added to Cruz’s. “Someone whose plans you were thwarting on a continual basis.”

Francesca gaped at him. “You’re suggesting my family.”

“I don’t want to suggest that, but you, of all people, know what they’re capable of. What they’ve already done. Is it so far out of the realm of possibility? During our interview, Michael confirmed your theory on the drug bust while he was at the academy. He also said they were behind the rumor mill regarding you and the sex allegations with the police chief and the mayor. Christ, they set both you and Michael up to look like bad cops so that you’d be forced back into the family fold. It’s probably how your older brothers were turned as well. How your father was turned. Fuck, it’s probably how it’s always been done.

“Under that theory, they probably figured you’d just roll over. When the two of you fought against them, maybe leaving was initially enough,” Cruz predicted. “But now you’re making a name for yourself, and Michael has surfaced and happens to be in the same place? Framing one of you for the murders while killing the other would be suitable punishment for resisting the McCabe legacy, don’t you think? And probably too delicious to pass up.”

Francesca’s eyes welled up with tears. Her brothers, her father, and all of her family were terrible people. They lied. They cheated. They stole. They extorted. They had even tortured and killed. But their own immediate family members? Could even they be so despicable? She thought back to that first night she’d gone to Tripoli’s apartment. He was right. As much as she hated her family and all they stood for, they were still her family. To know that they might possibly turn on her this way was soul-crushing.

Suddenly, the weight of the case was more than she could bear. She plopped down in an open chair in the conference room. “What the hell do we do?”

All three phones pinged with notifications from their email. After a few quick swipes and taps, they had their answer. “Official word is out. You are off the case and on vacation for six weeks. So what the hell we do is we protect you because right now you’re vulnerable.”

“I can’t stay in a safe house, Cruz. I’ll go bonkers.”

“Nope. We’re going to make you a safe house. With Tripoli. Former military. Completely sustained apartment with an elevator that locks off the outside, and only he knows the code. It’s perfect.”

“But he’s?—”

“Nope. Not a word.” The call Cruz made connected. “Tripoli. I need you to swing back to the office. We need your help.”