Twenty-One
The backlash against the Lake Sanguis Sheriff’s Department was vicious. People all around the nation were giving one-star reviews for detaining Aaron Russo.
—Crime Hive podcast
Russo was playing games, and I didn’t want to encourage him, but there were parts of the case that didn’t line up, and he was the only one with answers.
“This is a bad idea,” Jude said as he drove me to the sheriff’s station, gaze flicking nervously to his rearview mirror.
“He’ll be restrained,” I pointed out. “I should be perfectly safe.”
“I still don’t like it,” Jude said. He inched his white Volvo along Main Street, slower than usual, as we neared the sheriff’s station.
Media satellite trucks clogged the street, and several news reporters were recording their stories with the police station as their background.
A crowd of Canceled Killer fans jammed the sidewalk in front of the jail holding hastily made signs with marker and glitter.
FREE RUSSO NOW! read one. VIGILANTE HERO read another. And at least two said MARRY ME, RUSSO!, one outlined in pink glitter paint.
I didn’t recognize any locals among them, so they were all out-of-towners. The streets, normally deserted this time of year, were lined with cars with out-of-state plates.
“Who are these fools?” Jude asked as he gripped the steering wheel.
“Fans,” I said. “See their shirts?” Most of them were wearing hoodies or tees with the three skull emojis. “The Canceled Killer had a lot of fans.”
“But he’s a murderer.” Jude looked astonished.
“Yeah, but as long as he murders people they don’t like, then they’re all fine with murder.”
“This is what’s wrong with America,” Jude said as he scowled at the cramped streets. “Bloodthirst and a complete lack of decent parking.” He nodded to the line of cars on each side of the street.
“You can just drop me.”
“I should go in with you,” Jude said.
“I’ll be okay,” I said. We exchanged a glance. Reluctantly, Jude gave me a nod. “Let me out here.”
He slowed down near the front of the station. I gingerly got out of the car and grabbed my crutches from the back seat. I slung my bag over my shoulder and hobbled toward the front door.
“Hey! That’s Ella Takeda!” one of the Russo fans shouted.
“Boooo!” someone else shouted. A chorus of more jeers followed.
“He’d be free if it weren’t for you!” another cried.
These people were in deep. Deeper, even, than before, now that they knew their killer was hot and spent six out of seven days at the gym.
One of the women asking Russo to marry her dropped her sign and stalked over to me.
“You’re a terrible person,” she shouted at me, flipping a long strand of blond hair off her shoulder.
I was the terrible person? Say what now?
She tried to grab one of my crutches. I tried to hang on to it, but she whisked it out of my hand. That’s when Hector Martinez, on crowd control duty, saw me and rushed over.
“Leave her alone!” he said, separating the woman from me. “Back up!” he shouted to her and a few others who seemed to want a piece of me. He swiped my crutch back from the protestor who’d taken it. “Off the grass!”
The protestors took a few steps back, frowning at him.
Hector opened the door for me, and I hobbled into the police station, where Oscar was standing near the intake counter.
“What the hell has gotten into people?” Hector mused, shaking his head. Another woman flipped us all off as the glass doors closed.
“We need more officers for crowd control, and the state police haven’t arrived yet,” Oscar said. He gave me a sharp glance. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Then you shouldn’t have told me Russo has a missing piece of the puzzle.”
“It wasn’t my call.”
“It was mine,” came the voice of a woman in a flak jacket with the yellow FBI letters emblazoned on the back as she emerged from a nearby office.
She wore her dark hair swept back in a tight bun.
Hector moved so she could approach. “I’m Amanda Issa, FBI,” she said, holding out her hand.
I shook it, and she grasped my palm tightly.
“This is my Marine buddy in the FBI,” Oscar explained.
Issa looked at me with dark, intelligent eyes. “I know you want to nail this guy as much as I do.”
I nodded. “More,” I said.
A slight smile curved her lip. “Then make him talk. The more you get on the record before he lawyers up, the better we’ll all be.
” Issa glanced at her smartwatch. “All the best camera-hogging defense attorneys across the nation will be banging down his cell door any minute. We don’t have much time. ”
I nodded. “Whatever you need from me.”
“Just get him to let his guard down and talk. He’s in interrogation room one.”
“Handcuffed to the table,” Oscar said. “For your safety. We’ll be behind the glass, ready to intervene if you need anything.”
Russo looked disheveled, his sandy hair uncombed and the orange sheriff’s jumper open three buttons at the neck. Silver handcuffs latched his wrists to a loop in front of him on the silver table, which, I noticed, was also helpfully bolted to the ground.
Russo watched me with razor-sharp blue eyes that lightened a bit when they saw me, his thick mouth curving up into a lazy, smug smile.
“I knew you couldn’t resist seeing me, kid,” he said. “I knew it. There is something special between us.”
“I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because I’m hoping to watch you burn.” I slumped down into the uncomfortable metal chair on the other side of the table, folding my arms across my chest.
“I’m not the Canceled Killer,” Russo said. “I told you that.”
“Yeah, you also drugged and kidnapped me, so pardon me if I don’t believe you.”
“Well, you better start believing me. Because you and I both know the clues don’t fit with the mayor’s murder.”
“Exactly.” I leaned forward. “So why did you leave a different lemon in the mayor’s office? What was special about that?”
Russo leaned forward. “What’s special about that is that I found that lemon in the kitchen break room at the mayor’s office.
I didn’t go there planning to kill him. If anything, he was trying to kill me.
He swung at me first and came at me with a letter opener, believe it or not.
That’s when I defended myself, and he lost his balance and fell.
His temple hit the corner of the desk as he went down.
He was dead before he even hit the ground. ”
I frowned. “I don’t understand. So the other lemons came from somewhere else?”
Russo grinned at me. “I wouldn’t know where they came from.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not the Canceled Killer. I told you. They’re trying to pin all these murders on me, but I didn’t do it.” He glanced at me, eyes deadly serious. “I need your help to clear my name.”
“My help?” I said and laughed. “You shot me.”
“You shot yourself,” Russo corrected.
That’s splitting hairs.
“What about Olga Duncan? Did you pay her for sex but then didn’t like it when she took another client? Did jealousy get the better of you?”
Russo hung his head. “I don’t know who the hell Olga Duncan is.” He looked at me, blue eyes earnest. Or he was a helluva good liar. “I’m not the Canceled Killer. The real killer’s still on the loose.” The chants outside got louder. Russo’s fans were shouting, “Free Russo!”
“So you’re not really the defender of kids and dogs.”
“Nope.” Russo wrinkled his nose. “What’s in it for me?
That’s what I always ask myself. The Canceled Killer is a little bit too much of a righteous prick, if you ask me.
” Russo leaned forward across the table.
“You know I’m right, kid. You know in your gut, I’m right.
I’m not a saint—” I scoffed at that. “But I’m no serial killer. ”
“Who is it then?”
“No idea,” he said. “The real killer is like a ghost. Some of the guys in the precinct really think he’s former CIA or KGB, someone who knows how to get in and out without leaving a trace.”
I’d heard that theory before. But how many former spies did we have running around? Not many.
“If you’re not the killer, then why drug me? Why kidnap Jude and Mateo? Why not just head to Canada and disappear?”
Russo cocked his head. “Look, I’m a romantic. Sometimes, love blinds a man to reason.” He flashed me a very creepy smile.
“So why the flight to Canada?”
“You were supposed to be with me. That bitch in Chicago was going to press charges, so we needed to get out of Dodge. Do you know what they do to cops in jail?”
“I think you’re about to find out,” I said.
Russo frowned.
“I’m not the Canceled Killer,” he reiterated. “I saw the real killer. At Gordon’s Custard, I got a fleeting glance in my rearview mirror. I think he was wearing a life vest. Probably owns a boat. Maybe even got away on one.” Russo shrugged.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I nodded to the two-way glass. “You know they’re all listening.”
“Yeah, I know.” Russo studied me with steely blue eyes. “But the real killer is still out there. I wasn’t lying when I said he sent a message to the precinct. He’ll still be coming for you.”
Was Russo telling the truth or was he just toying with me? I mulled over every word back at Koi, sitting in the big armchair by the fireplace in the sitting room near the check-in desk.
“You believe Russo?” Jude asked me, handing me a cup of hot cider he’d warmed up in the kitchen. I’d told him everything on the ride back.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, taking a sip of the sweet, cinnamon-topped goodness.
“Why kidnap me, then? Or Spider-Man?”
“To hear Russo tell it, he was just insanely jealous and wanted me all to himself.”
“I mean, I get it,” Jude said. “You are perfect, so of course he’d be in love with you.” Jude sank into the armchair opposite mine. “But… what if he’s just using you? Manipulating you?”
“He might be.” I felt a twinge of pain in my leg and tried to shift my position to ease it. “He also says the killer is still on the loose and still has beef with me,” I added as I worked to get comfortable.
“That sounds terrifying.”
“Agent Issa said he’s probably just trying to get under my skin.”
“Probably is.”