7. Kato
Chapter 7
Kato
‘ N othing Here’ is undoubtedly in a nondescript building that, from the outside, looks more like the entrance to an office park than a bar. If it wasn’t for the raucous laughter and folks teetering side to side, faces hidden by thick puffs of smoke, that’s exactly what I’d think it was. The sign above the door is even sprawled out in graffiti, which could be easily missed by the undiscerning eye.
Inside, however, is a whole other ball game. This place is excellent. When this case is said and done, I might find myself here drinking away thoughts of Elara. She’s been quiet lately on her end of the bond. I want to check on her, but I don’t want to overstep her boundaries. After all, she didn’t choose me, and it was only by dumb luck that she was forced to be around me again.
What if it wasn’t dumb luck? What if it was something more?
I shake the thoughts out of my head. There’s no time for this right now. Leafing through the stack of photos in my hands, I take a deep breath and glance around. The others are already fanned out across the bar, chatting up patrons, everyone except for Callie.
I’d asked her to stay behind after seeing her nerves at our meeting earlier, and I think she could use a bit of rest and time to get herself together. We’ve got this between Bruce, Gun, Hati, and me.
“Hello, what can I get for you?” The bartender asks kindly enough, but the look in his eyes says he’s sizing me up. Smart man.
“Can you tell me if you’ve seen any of these women here?” I ask putting the photographs down on the bar one by one.
“Are you some kind of creep?” He asks, polishing a cup with blue cloth.
“I’m looking for one,” I counter, and he sighs, putting the glass down and stepping closer. “I’m Agent Blackwood with the SPIU.” I flash my badge, and he eyes it for a second before nodding.
The bartender looks at each photo intensely. Before saying a word, he separates the photos into two different piles: “I recognize these ones,” he says, finally pointing to the larger stack of photos.
“How often did they come here?”
“Often enough that I recognize them but not so much that I remember their names or know much about them, those two,” he pulls out a photo of a blond and a redhead, “I haven’t seen in at least a year, maybe two but it’s hard to remember exactly I see so many faces in a night. A lot of young women following similar fashion trends and styles, it’s not always easy to differentiate them all.”
“What about this one?” I ask, pulling out one more photo from my suit jacket.
“Elara,” he says, eyebrows knitting together. “I know her.”
“So, you know her well enough to know her name but not the others?” My jaw sets. I don’t like the idea of this man ‘knowing’ Elara.
“Mhm, she comes here often enough and is my girlfriend’s therapist.” His eyes flutter back to the stack of photos. “Is this about what happened to her? Did it happen to them too?”
It’s good to know the media has yet to report too much. That means we’ve been doing a good job of keeping this case under wraps.
“My girlfriend said she wasn’t taking appointments for a while. I guess she’s taking time off to recover from an attack?”
“That’s right, she was attacked,” I nod, weighing my options about how much I’m willing to divulge. “These other women in the photographs were attacked as well. Only by the time we found them, they weren’t alive.”
Pink creeps over the bartender’s cheeks as his jaw sets, and he looks down at the photos, shuffling through them once again. “I can tell you that these three have been harassed in the past by a regular here. He does a good enough job of not going over the line to get kicked out, but let’s just say if it came down to walking past his table or taking the long way to the bathroom, these women would always take the long way.”
“And who is this regular?”
“Jackson,” the bartender says, lowering his voice to a near whisper as he glances at the clock. “He won’t be in for another hour or two, but he’ll be here. He’s here every night.”
“You got a last name?”
“Hughes.”
I scribble the name down, “is there anyone else that any of these women might have had problems with?”
“Nothing that sticks out to me.”
“Alright, thank you.”
I pull out my phone and text Minna, asking her to use her I.T. skills to investigate this Jackson Hughes guy and to give me whatever she can find within an hour.
“You are lucky that I’m salaried, handsome, this is not the after-hours call I was waiting for.”
I roll my eyes, a smile lifting the corners of my lips.
“What are you smiling about over here?” Hati asks, I hadn’t even noticed him appearing next to me.
“Minna.”
“Ah, what have you found out then?”
“I’ve found out that we will need to be back here in an hour or two.”
“Okay,” Hati says, eyeing me like he’s waiting for the rest of the information. When I say nothing else, he sighs. “There’s a late-night diner around the corner. Why don’t we go get a bite and some coffee and debrief?”
I nod, and before I can say anything else, Bruce and Gun are already heading to the door. They must have been listening to our conversation with their shifter enhanced hearing. How many others in this bar were doing the same?
The diner’s bright, fluorescent lights and turquoise vinyl booths has a completely different vibe than the bar. I wonder how many others stumble out of the dark, cozy speakeasy and head down the street, drunk and hungry, only to be accosted by the diner’s brightness and decor. Still, the coffee is strong, and the food is cheap. I can’t ask for much else from a diner that’s open 24/7.
My phone dings as I shove a quarter of a club sandwich into my mouth. Still chewing, I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll through the messages. Goddess, Minna is good.
“Lay it on us, what did Minna find?” Hati says, putting his spoon back in his bowl of soup.
“Jackson Hughes has multiple arrests for domestic violence, he is a regular at the bar, doesn’t appear to have any sort of legitimate career or source of income. He was raised by a single mother who worked constantly to make ends meet, although now his mother is extremely mentally ill and is under care at a facility that Jackson pays the bills for.”
Bruce lets out a low whistle, and for once, Gun doesn’t have any smart comments to make. He just raises his eyebrows and takes another bite of his cheeseburger.
“Did she send a home address?” Hati asks.
“You know she did,” I offer a half smile. “Why don’t you and Gun go check out the house and see if it’s a viable place to hold the victims?”
“I was hoping you might say that” Hati nods and then returns to his soup.
“What? I don’t have enough muscle to talk to the big scary guy at the bar?” Gun smirks.
“Between you and Bruce?” I motion between the two, “Absolutely not.”
By the time Bruce and I return to the bar, Jackson Hughes is posted up at his usual booth in the corner just like the bartender said he would be. A few of the men and women sitting with Jackson’s eyes widen slightly as they look over Bruce.
It’s obvious that no one had the same reaction to me. I’m a big guy, but next to Bruce? I’d wager I look like a schoolboy.
“Jackson Hughes?” I ask like it’s a question as if I hadn’t already seen his mugshots half an hour before this.
“Who’s asking?” Jackson says, setting his jaw tight. That’s a good one; I haven’t heard that before.
“Agent Blackwood,” I say, flashing my badge.
“What do you want?” Jackson asks, sounding more annoyed that I’m interrupting his night than nervous about why I might want to talk to him.
“Do you know any of these women?” I ask, pulling out the photos of the women the bartender indicated had previously had a problem with Jackson.
“I’ve seen them, pretty girls, I make it my business to remember pretty girls.” Jackson shrugs and pushes the photos back toward me. “I haven’t seen them for a while though.”
“That’s because they are dead,” I say, watching Jackson closely.
“Damn shame for the world to lose skirts like that before they get wrinkly.” I suppress a shudder.
“You’re not making a good case for yourself here,” Bruce grumbles.
“I don’t need to. I didn’t do anything to them,” he chuckles and takes a big swig of his beer.
“Is there anyone who can corroborate that for you?” I ask, although as much as I want to punch him right in his smug face, I get the sense that he’s actually telling the truth.
“I am never alone,” he smirks. “I’m sure you’ll get your dates in line and ask around. In the meantime, you’re really killing the vibe tonight. Last time I checked, it’s not illegal to hit on a woman, so unless I’m under arrest, I’m going to ask you to leave.”
Bruce and I nod at one another and step away from the table without saying another word to Jackson.
“The guy’s a piece of work, but I don’t think he’s our man. We’ll have to see what Hati and Gun found, but right now, I’d say focusing on him would be a waste of time.”
“I’m right there with you,” I sigh. It would have been much easier had Jackson been our guy.
On our way out of the bar, we are distracted by a commotion between a young woman who had thrown a drink on a man and a man with his hand raised, only inches away from the woman’s face. A security officer’s arm is hooked around the man’s raised arm.
“Alright big man, that’s enough. You’ve been warned already tonight. It’s time for you to leave,” the security guard says.
“But that bitch threw her drink on me; this is a thousand-dollar suit!” The man’s eyes narrow on the woman as he lowers his voice to a growl, “You will pay for this.”
“Not tonight, she won’t,” the security guard says, pulling him away toward the exit.
Bruce and I hang on the sidelines, tense and ready to jump in if need be. After a minute or two outside, the security guard returns to the woman’s side, asking, “Are you alright, Miss?”
“Fine,” she offers a smile even though she’s trembling, “thank you.”
“Why don’t you head over to the bar and get a replacement drink on the house? When you are ready to leave, let us know, and we will get you a cab home.”
Now I can see why these women like this bar. There are creeps all over the place, but it’s not often that an establishment makes it a priority to protect their female patrons. Which would make it even more menacing if this were the source of the abductions.
I look over at Bruce, whose jaw is clenched as he sweeps his eyes around the bar. He must be thinking the same thing.
“Hey,” I say to the security guard who kicked out the sexual harasser, “do you tend to have issues like that in here a lot?”
“Here and there,” the man says, “we get to them fast, and if someone becomes a known problem, they are blacklisted. We must keep the kind of atmosphere that beautiful women want to be in because, according to the owner, that’s the kind of place rich men want to come and spend lots of money in.” He puffs out his chest.
“Good to know. Do you have a list of these blacklisted men?”
“There’s a wall of photos around the corner from the bar,” he says, a little deflated.
I nod at Bruce, who heads over to take photos of the blacklisted patrons. It’s not likely, but maybe someone is out for personal revenge. The security guard returns to his post, surveying the bar with a careful eye.
If Jackson isn’t the killer, who could be? Are we focusing our energy on the wrong place?