Sixteen #2
“I don’t expect you to feel the same way,” Jude said. “I don’t expect anything.” He glared at Oscar. “Because we’re adults, and we’re working this all out. At our own pace.”
“Just leave me out of it,” Oscar grumbled.
“Nobody wanted you in it,” Jude pointed out.
“Don’t come running to me when she breaks your heart,” Oscar told Jude. “That’s all.”
“Hey,” I managed, offended. “Who said I was breaking anyone’s heart?” That was just insulting.
Oscar whirled on me. “You break everyone’s heart, Thin Ice. It’s what you do. You can’t even commit to a town, much less a person.”
“Hey—”
“I love you. You’re my sister. You kick ass. Everyone knows how tough you are. But… you’re not the kind to stick around. You’re not reliable.”
“That’s not—” I protested, hurt.
“And you have to hook up with the most sensitive guy in Lake Sanguis?” Oscar gestured with frustration at Jude.
“Hey,” Jude protested.
“And then you and him run after a literal murderer putting your very lives at risk? I mean… you could’ve been killed. With Jude watching.”
Fair point.
“I love you both, but I can’t fix your death wish, El. And now you’ve dragged Jude into this insanity and… I just… can’t.” Oscar threw up his hands and began walking away.
“Oscar… wait…” I said. Oscar stopped. He turned. “I love you, too.” Oscar’s shoulders sagged. “I’m okay. I didn’t die. And… I get that you don’t want us doing anything risky. But you need to talk to Russo. He’s digging up dirt on Mateo in Milwaukee.”
“Who the hell is Russo?” Oscar asked, frowning.
“Aaron Russo. Chicago Homicide division,” I said.
“Did you really not listen to the podcast?” Jude asked, shocked.
Oscar shrugged.
“Russo was on at least three episodes,” Jude pointed out.
“Whatever.” Oscar waved a hand. “He’s got no jurisdiction here.”
“No, he doesn’t, but what he does have are actual clues and a willingness to solve this case,” I said.
“I want to solve this case!” Oscar growled as dispatch crackled to life on the radio at his shoulder.
“Sheriff?” came a man’s voice. “You there, Sheriff?”
“Ten-four,” Oscar growled into his radio.
“It’s Deputy Martinez, sir. We found Allen Gordon.”
“Good. Hold him for questioning.”
“Uh…” Hector paused on the other end of the line. “There won’t be any questioning. Allen Gordon’s dead.”
Allen Gordon was indeed dead, his rotund body in the fetal position in the walk-in freezer of Gordon’s Frozen Custard, his blue eyes turned milky, not focusing on anything.
His almost entirely bald head reflected the fluorescent light above, which cast shadows along the pock-mocked acne scars on his cheeks.
The CEO of Gordon’s Frozen Custard wore a crisp white collared shirt and red fleece vest with the Gordon’s Frozen Custard logo: a blond girl with blond pigtails, grinning from ear to ear and holding a spoon.
A small dot of blood on his neck meant something. Syringe, maybe?
The man wasn’t frozen yet, so he couldn’t have been in the freezer that long, but someone had disabled the interior release lock. He was surrounded by pints and pints of his listeria custard. And right near his body was a lemon—a proper one with a stem and leaf.
“That lemon—with the stem and leaf—is a Sorrento, and it matches the one found at the first crime scene,” I told Oscar at the freezer door. “That matches previous Canceled Killer crime scenes.”
Oscar and his deputy whirled and when he saw me, his eyes widened in rage.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he growled at me. “I told you to wait in the car.” He saw Jude hovering behind me, and his nostrils flared. He grabbed my arm and walked me to the open door. The only reason I let him do this was because my fingers were numb, and they weren’t doing my bidding.
“Jude, take her home.”
“But, I don’t want—”
“Now!” Oscar shouted and gave me a shove out to the sidewalk.
“Hey, El, let’s go.” Jude offered his hand, just like he did when he had lain flat on the ice when I was seven and tugged me out of the water with the help of his scarf.
I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember him there, but I’d been so young then. Jude led me out of Gordon’s, my Converse so wet, they squished like an old dish sponge when I walked.
I shivered in the cold, or maybe because Lake Sanguis had another dead body, and I might be the third.
I didn’t want to think about that. I’d much rather pick apart Oscar’s crime scene.
Because then I didn’t have to think about how the Canceled Killer had all the free time on his hands to come after me.
There was no doubt now.
I was next.
I called Russo but got voicemail.
“We need to get you into dry clothes anyway,” Jude said.
“I need to get a look at that crime scene.” My only hope was figuring out who the Canceled Killer was so I could come for him before he came for me.
“Well, good thing I took a picture.” Jude offered his phone to me. I grabbed it and zoomed in on the picture. Gordon on his side. The lemon lying next to him.
“Did you get a good look at the driver of the Wagoneer?” I asked Jude.
Jude shook his head. “It’s got to be Mateo, though, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” I didn’t get a good look at the man, either. “He did drive like a stuntman.”
“Let’s hurry and get you into some dry clothes. Also, I already called Ted Anderson. He’s meeting us at my house.”
“Oh, golly geez,” Ted said when he arrived to find me sipping hot coffee, hair still wet, but now in dry clothes—mostly Jude’s—his oversized flannel shirt over the cropped tank and leggings I’d worn yesterday. “Really earning that nickname, eh, Thin Ice?”
“Sure am,” I said.
“I tell you what, I basically had to sneak out of the house to get here, because Tammy was so set on coming over to see how you were.”
“Oh, I bet she was.” And it wasn’t out of concern, either. She wanted to get the gossip straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Now, you want to be telling me why you both are magnets for trouble?”
My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. I glanced at the face of it and groaned. Jared’s attorney. Man, he had rotten timing.
“Who’s that, then?”
“Long story. I think I’m being sued,” I said.
“Oh, well, they wouldn’t be calling you if you’re being sued,” Ted said. “They’d be serving you papers, doncha know?” Ted reached for my phone. “Mind if I…?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“Oh, hello, dere,” Ted said as he pressed the phone against his ear. “I’m Ted Anderson, Ms. Takeda’s attorney speaking.” Ted winked at me. Then he nodded. “Mm-hmm. Sure.” He nodded again. “Sounds about right,” he added. “Uh-huh. No, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, no. Hold on one minute, if you would.”
Ted pulled the phone from his ear and hit the Mute button. “Peter Neufeld doesn’t want to sue you. He’s thinking you might have information about the case that could help his client file a civil suit against the Chicago police department. Do you?”
I shrugged. “Everything I had I put in the podcast.”
“Well then, why don’t you give the man a listen and see if anything he says makes sense to ya. Ya don’t need to offer anything, just listen.” Ted put the phone on speaker so we could all listen. “Hey there, Peter. You hear us?”
“Yes, sir. Is Ms. Ophelia Takeda there?”
“No, yeah. She’s here. But folks around here call her—” I flashed him a warning look. “Ella,” he finished.
“Hello, Ella. Very nice to finally connect with you on the phone. I don’t know if you can help us, but there have been some developments in the case.
We’re trying to prove that early on, the police ignored vital clues that could’ve led them to the real killer, which is why they owe my client compensation. ”
“I’m listening,” I said staring at the phone in the center of the table.
“First of all, police found a match for the tire tread recovered from the scene of the influencer who mocked the Special Olympics.”
“The one run over in the parking lot?”
“Yeah,” the lawyer said.
This was news to me.
“Yes. The tire tread matched evidence in an unsolved murder case. But this was an old case in Lake Sanguis.”
“Lake Sanguis had a murder?” I asked, baffled. “When?”
“Olga Duncan, seven years ago, out at the abandoned campground?”
Her name did slightly ring a bell. I was at Northwestern then, though, and what information I could get came from Olivia.
Oscar was tight-lipped about it. “She was a sex worker found out at some old cabin. She’d been drugged and then strangled.
Police didn’t find much evidence, but they did lift a tire tread.
The FBI put it in their database, which is how the Chicago police found it. ”
“Had Olga Duncan been canceled?” I asked, curious.
“No,” Peter said. “Not that we could tell. Someone simply took this woman there and killed her. Police think it was a john. Maybe rough sex gone bad.”
“But the Canceled Killer is always so righteous,” Jude protested as he stared at the phone on the table. “This murder doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if our killer isn’t actually a righteous killer at all,” I said. “But just a cold-blooded murderer.”
I glanced at Jude. He’d already made that logical leap. “But he was so careful to make a story out of all his crime scenes.”
“Only after he figured out he wanted to kill people,” Peter suggested on the phone.
I felt my blood boil. If I had hated the Canceled Killer before, I hated him even more now. He wasn’t any different from any other serial killer. It was all about bloodlust, power, and control. It had nothing to do with social justice.
“Do you know where the first murder happened?” I asked.
“Out in the woods, I think,” Peter said. “It had been an old summer camp? I’ll send you the address.”
“Wait. Camp Lake Sanguis?” Jude asked, and we locked gazes across the table.
“The murder cabin,” I said, astonished.
“Murder what now?” Ted asked, confused.
“With the nicer cabin in the back. Dave Simpson is staying there.”
“I guess?” Ted shrugged.