EXTRACTION
By
Daniel Skye
1
Thursday, December 19, 2013.
It was an anonymous 911 call that
had led to a grisly, mystifying discovery. The caller was described by the 911
dispatcher as a male, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. Whoever the
caller was, they spoke in a high-pitched, falsetto voice. There was no way for
the dispatcher to determine if the voice was their own or if the caller was
attempting to disguise it.
What was known is that the caller
reported a car accident on Industrial Road. He didn’t give a make, model, or
plate number. It all happened so fast, the caller had told the dispatcher.
Anyone who lives in Carter City
knows about Lake Jennings and the roads that border it. And anyone who lives in
Carter City can tell you that down on Industrial Road, there are no safety
rails to protect drivers in the west lane. One wrong turn and your car could
end up submerged in water.
The caller claimed the car had
skidded from the road and crashed into the lake with a gargantuan splash. But
first responders found no skid marks or tires tracks on the road that indicated
such an accident had occurred. Nevertheless, the city spared no expense in
searching the murky water for signs of wreckage.
It was around dawn when they fished
a blue Plymouth from the lake. It took them minutes to deduce that the car had
not been submerged in the icy water for a few hours. It had been down there at
least six months, as the rust and algae formation indicated.
“Why are we being summoned again for
a car accident?” Wes Archer had asked in his Jeep on the ride over to the scene
on Industrial Road.
“They found a body,” Dale Craven had
answered.
“In the front seat?”
“No, in the trunk.”
As they pulled up behind several
police cruisers, Carson hit the brakes and slammed the Jeep in park and they got out.
The car was a Plymouth, but it had no
plates, no registration, no inspection, no VIN number. “Positive ID is going to
be tricky,” Officer Barclay informed his superiors. “His prints turned up nil.
And dental records are unlikely.”
“Why do you say that?” Dale Craven,
Archer’s partner, had asked Barclay.
“He’s got no teeth. They were plied
from his mouth.”
* * *
Saturday, December 21, 2013.
Wes Archer was seated at his desk,
looking over old case files he had Officer Barclay dig up from archives. Steam
was rising up from the mug of coffee Dale Craven had placed in front of him. At
that precise moment, Archer wanted anything but coffee. He was craving a
strong, stiff drink. Something with a little more kick than a beer produces.
But what he was really craving, what
he desired more than anything, was a hit. Archer had gained two things from
stay in undercover narcotics: A promotion to Homicide and chemical dependency.
His last excursion had come during
the Glasgow Killer case, when he gave into temptation and smoked pot with his
friend, Ray Frye. The circumstances were different then. He was on suspension
and didn’t have to worry about passing a drug test. Now, after solving the
Glasgow Killer case, he was back on the force.
He had been off heroin for a long
time and was passing all his drug tests. He had finally gained Lieutenant
Morris’s trust back and he wasn’t going to lose it this time. He’d die before
he let himself relapse again.
“What you looking at?” Craven asked
as he plopped himself in the burgundy chair in front of Archer’s desk.
“A bunch of old case files. That
body in the trunk got me thinking. I’ve seen that handiwork before. The
victim’s teeth being excised, it reminded a lot of the unsolved Tooth Fairy
case.”
“The Tooth Fairy?”
“It was before your time. Six years
ago, four bodies turned up over a period of eight months. All the victims were
female. Their bodies had been mutilated and their teeth extracted. All the
women had one thing in common. They were all loners, drifters, prostitutes or
call girls. People that nobody would miss.”
“And you think this is the work of
the same guy?”
“If it is, then why is he breaking
the pattern? Why kill a man? And why go to those lengths to hide the body?”
“Well, we don’t have anything new on
the anonymous 911 call. But we do have a name on the body. Kurt Warwick. A
reporter for the Daily Buzz. His
co-workers reported him missing months ago when he failed to show up to work
after three days. Pete Drayton said the official cause of death was blunt force
trauma. He also found multiple stab wounds and lacerations under Warwick’s
clothes. The teeth were likely removed after the final blow to the head that
did him in.”
“Do we have officers questioning the
staff at the Daily Buzz?”
“Already taken care of,” Craven told
his partner. “And it turns out we can’t find the report when his co-workers
declared him missing. The cops in Ocean City never bothered to file it because
Warwick was infamous for pulling stunts like that. He’d disappear for two,
three days at a time and not tell a soul where he was going.”
“What else?” Archer asked. “I know
you’re holding something back.”
“I typed Warwick’s name into a
search engine to see what would pop up. Turns out the guy was an aide to Roger
Devlin.”
“Devlin? The guy who’s running for
governor?”
“Bingo. He was fired for not showing
up to several important meetings. I guess that ties into what his co-workers
and OCPD have said about him.”
“Well, this isn’t Ocean City. This
is Carter City. The boys at OCPD couldn’t hang two minutes in this city. I want
to know everything there is about this guy. Do we have the authority to talk
with Roger Devlin?”
“You mean do we have permission from
the Captain and Lieutenant Morris? No, but since when have rules and
regulations ever stopped you from doing what you wanted?”
“Excellent point,” Archer smiled.
“You’re really starting to get to know me, Dale.”
“You smiled,” Craven said, “And you
called me Dale. I don’t think you’ve ever called me Dale except for when you
introduce me as your partner.”
“I guess we’re both making
progress,” Archer said, taking a sip of his coffee that had finally cooled off a
bit. “Let’s go see Mr. Devlin and hear what he has to say.”
* * *
Roger Devlin’s office was on the top
floor of a private red-brick estate on the Westside of Carter City.
Wes Archer could tell right off the
bat that Devlin was an oak man. The desk, the chairs, even the ribbed wall
panels, all polished oak. Devlin was in the middle of a business call when they
dropped in to pay him a visit. As soon as Devlin saw them standing in the
doorway, he hung up the phone and waved them to come in.
He was sitting behind his shiny oak
desk and invited them to take a seat, but they declined. He was a stout man in
his early fifties. Pink jowls ballooned over his white shirt collar. They shook
every time he moved. Matching polished gold cufflinks that gleamed under the
humming fluorescent office lights.
“May I ask what this is in regards
to Mr.–”
“Detective. Homicide Detective Wes
Archer. This is my partner, Dale Craven.”
“Homicide?” Devlin said. “What’s
this all about?”
“It’s about one of your former
aides. Kurt Warwick. He decided to take a swim in Lake Jennings, except he was
locked in the trunk of his Plymouth at the time. They just reeled his car out of
the water two days ago.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Devlin shook his
head, and his pink jowls jiggled along with him. “I read about it in the
paper.”
“And you didn’t feel compelled to
contact the authorities?” Wes questioned, raising one eyebrow with subtle
accusation.
“I figured if the police felt it
necessary, they’d contact me. Apparently you gentlemen felt it was necessary.
And I’m here to answer any and all of your questions. I’ll start by saying that
Kurt Warwick was only an employee of mine for several months. He was a smart
man, he knew the political game, but he simply wasn’t reliable. He liked to
drink, he liked to gamble, and those hobbies interfered with his work. So I had
to replace him.”
“Is that all you have to say about
Kurt Warwick?”
“There’s not much else to report,
Detective.” He emphasized the word detective in such patronizing fashion that
Wes wanted to reach over the desk and smack him.
“We’ll be in touch if we need to ask
anything else,” Archer said as they walked to the door to dismiss themselves.
“Detectives,” he called out to them
and they turned back. “I hope you find whoever was responsible for this. Kurt
was a good man. He had his problems, but he was still a good man.”
2
The Bellmore Hotel was once a prominent
symbol of downtown Carter City. Tourists marveled at the pristine conditions,
hospitable service, and appreciated its close proximity to shops and local
attractions.
The hotel once deemed a five star
establishment has regressed into a magnet for druggies, hookers, and frugal
tourists looking for a cheap place to hang their hats for the evening.
Cheap lodgings are often accompanied
by musky, unpleasant odors; but what Nigel Stanwick smelled stemming from the
hallway was downright offensive. And so Stanwick phoned the front desk
immediately to register a complaint about the foul odor.
So the front desk dispatched Jordan
Kingston, the hotels maintenance man to investigate. He walked the corridors
until he believed he located the source. It was coming from a vacant Room 11.
He used his magnetic card to unlock
the door and he had to hang the collar of his shirt over his nose just to stop
himself from puking. He had located the room, but had yet to pinpoint the exact
source of this rank smell.
Jordan put on a pair of disposable
gloves, peered under the bed, lifted the mattress, checked the closet and the
bathroom. Then he walked over to the vent. He dragged a writing chair across
the room so he could stand on it and be eye-level with the vent to get a better
look inside.
He lowered his shirt and the pungent
aroma wafting out made him gag like a punch to the throat. He brought his shirt
collar back over his nose and used one his tools, a flathead, to loosen the
screws from the vent. He pulled the grating off and peered inside. Beyond the
darkness, he could see something wedged inside. He reached in, felt around, and
made a horrific discovery when he pulled out a severed hand, sealed in plastic.
Jordan Kingston was easily able to
identify to the rest of the contents stuffed inside the vent. They were body
parts.
* * *
After questioning the hotel staff
and squeezing a few words out of a traumatized Jordan Kingston, Archer and
Craven had learned two things.
One: The room was last rented by a man
named Kurt Warwick. Or a man using Warwick’s ID. The room had been rented on a
Friday, the night after the police had found Warwick’s body in Lake Jennings.
The hotel staff couldn’t give a positive description. All they said was the guy
looked average. Archer remarked that they usually do. They checked the security
cameras, but the guy who had rented the room for the night had come in alone.
He paid cash and was wearing a hat, scarf, and a heavy jacket zipped up to his
neck. It was impossible to get a clear shot of his face on tape.
And Two: The body found in Room 11 was
a female, her body hacked up into seven pieces and neatly vacuum sealed in
plastic. Archer, having spent time at marine basins as a child, was familiar
with vacuum sealers, as he had seen dock workers using them to seal packages of
bait to freeze and sell. Archer knew the size of one of them. It wasn’t
something you could transport inside your luggage. So if he had used a vacuum
sealer in the hotel, people would’ve seen him walk in with it.
This led Archer to believe the girl’s
murder and dismemberment took place elsewhere, and the room was used as a
dumping ground. But whoever had killed this poor girl was also in possession of
Kurt Warwick’s ID. If they did catch the guy, they’d already have him tied to
two murders. It was all a matter of finding him now.
Dale sighed as they stood in the floral
carpeted vestibule of the hotel. “Saturday night and this is what we’re doing.
I chose the wrong profession.”
“Do we have an ID on the girl yet?”
“I’m afraid not,” Craven shook his
head. “This one is going to be tricky. Her teeth are missing. No fingerprints
either. Sick, twisted bastard cut her head off, pulled out her teeth, burnt her
fingertips off, and shoved her in there like it was nothing. I can’t wait to
see this fucker rot in jail.”
“First we have to catch him,” Archer
reminded his partner.
A bellboy arriving for his late-night
shift bumped shoulders with Wes in the vestibule and turned to apologize. His
shiny faux gold nametag said Matthew.
“Sorry about that,” Matthew said.
“No trouble, son,” Archer said to the
young bellboy.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” The
bellboy looked disappointed.
“Should I?”
“We met a while back,” Matthew informed
him.
“Sorry if I don’t remember you. I’m a
Detective. I meet lots of people.”
“It’s quite all right,” Matthew assured
him as he walked through the automatic doors from the vestibule to the lobby.
“That was odd,” Craven remarked.
“Everything about this job is fucking
odd,” Archer retorted.
* * *
Sunday, December 22, 2013.
The forensics crew didn’t turn up a
single hair, fiber, fingerprint, or DNA sample in Room 11 that came from their
killer. If this was the Tooth Fairy, Archer wasn’t dealing with an amateur. He
was dealing with a man who knew how to cover his tracks.
Pete Drayton, the coroner, had his
report ready by Sunday afternoon. He and Ray Frye were working extra fast on
this case at Archer’s request. Archer wasn’t going to let this guy slip by
again. If the Tooth Fairy was back in Carter City, Wes would weed him out.
The victim was female, African
American, twenty-one to twenty-six years old, no tattoos but a birthmark above
her hip and a faded scar on one knee.
Her body had been dismantled, cut
into seven pieces. The arms were hacked off at the shoulder blades. The legs
cut off at the thighs. The torso had been split into two separate parts. The
killer more than likely saved the head for last.
The massive tissue and muscle damage
indicated that a chainsaw or some other sawing instrument was used to cut the
girl up. Cause of death was undetermined, but Pete surmised she probably bled
out from one of her various stab wounds before the killer hacked her to bits
and extracted her teeth.
“This reminds me of the Vulture
case,” Pete told Archer over the phone. “Our killer turned out to be a failed
surgeon.”
“And you’re suggesting our killer
might be a failed dentist?”
“He could be an active dentist for
all we know. All I can say is this guy knows how to pull teeth. They’re pulled
out by the roots. There’s nothing left for me to even examine.”
“That’s all right, Pete. Call us if
you find anything else.” Archer hung up the phone on his desk and leaned back
in his chair, exhausted. He had barely slept since the night they reeled the blue Plymouth out from the lake.
“Pete has a point,” Dale said,
working on his fourth cup of coffee. “Our guy could be a dentist, or an
aspiring dentist, or a whack job who flunked out of dental school.”
“We need an ID on our victim. I’ll
tell you what, you look into dentists. I’ll look into girls reported missing in
the last few weeks.”
“Whatever gets me away from you,”
Dale shrugged and took Archer’s place at his desk. If he was going to find a
name, he wasn’t going to find it in any reports. He needed outside help for
this one. Toad.
* * *
Toad is Archer’s snitch. A smalltime
drug dealer who operates with immunity and protection in exchange for the
information he feeds Wes from time to time.
In the four previous Tooth Fairy
murder cases, the girls had been drifters who made money as call girls,
strippers, or prostitutes. And Toad knew the names of every girl that worked
downtown Carter City.
He found Toad on the corner of
Sparkwood and Sycamore, hanging out in front of the arcade.
“You looking to buy or you looking
for info?” Toad asked as he approached the driver side window of Archer’s Jeep.
“Info,” Archer said. “You know I
don’t use anymore.”
“Right, right,” Toad said, laughing
silently at the thought of a sober Wes Archer.
“I’m looking for a girl who
disappeared, maybe not too long ago. Brown hair, brown eyes, black skin,
twenty-one to twenty-six years old, she might’ve been a street walker if you catch
my drift.”
“The only girl I can think of that
matches that description is Shondra Wilson.”
“Shondra Wilson,” Wes jotted the
name down on his notepad he had pressed against the horn of the steering wheel.
“Yeah, she disappeared a week ago. Her
pimp is Lex Belmar.”
“Lex Belmar,” Wes repeated, jotting
down the name again.
“He works down on Elm Street, has a
connection with the ESB.”
“The ESB?”
“The Elm Street Boys. You never
heard of them? They’re a multiracial gang, run by Damien Delgado. They’re practically
putting me out of business with the shit they sell. They share the street with
Belmar, who gives them a taste of his profits.”
“This is all good to know. You never
disappoint me, Toad.”
“Just keep my name out of it and
we’re cool,” Toad grinned and flashed him the thumbs up.
“By the way, does Vernon Keene still
hang out over here?” Keene was a young thug who had a physical altercation with
Archer months before. He had also helped solve the Glasgow Killer case with the
information he gave to Archer.
“No, he’s with the ESB now.”
* * *
Elm Street was the worst section of
downtown Carter City. Not even the cops bothered to pass through nowadays. But
Wes Archer wasn’t your regular cop.
He drove his Jeep straight into the
belly of the beast. He passed several street walkers in mini dresses and
tattered fishnet stockings. He slowed down, but as soon as he mentioned the
name Shondra Wilson, they disbanded.
Lex Belmar, a thin white man with a
cleft chin and a backwards baseball cap approached the car angrily. “Hey!” he
shouted into the window. “You best be leaving my bitches alone. They here to
make money, not chitchat.”
“What about you?” Wes inquired. “You
like to chitchat? Because I’m looking for info about a girl named Shondra
Wilson. And I can get that info here or in the interrogation room. Your call.”
“Shondra was one of my girls, ok?
But she ran off a week ago. Didn’t even take her stuff with her. She was
irresponsible. Shondra took risks, went into business for herself, took on
clients without me knowing about it. She was a liability. I’m glad she’s gone.”
“She’s dead.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Does Shondra have a birthmark above
her hip or a scar on her knee?”
“Yeah, she’s had a scar on her knee
since she was a kid she told me. The birthmark, I’m pretty sure it was right by
her hip.”
“Then she’s the girl lying on a cold
examining slab in the city morgue right now.”
“Damn…how did she die?” Lex honestly
seemed broken up about it. Archer could never tell if a man like Belmar was
being sincere or not. But if he wasn’t being sincere, he was trying his hardest
to fool Archer and it was working.
“Someone hacked her up into pieces.
Ripped the teeth right out of her mouth.”
Belmar looked like he was going to
be sick.
“Anything you want to tell me that might
help find her killer?”
“Like I said, the girl took risks. I
couldn’t keep tabs on her twenty-four-seven, you know what I mean? She took
risks, and I guess she paid the price this time. Do you know if there’s going
to be a funeral?”
“Not until her family is notified.”
Wes figured they were done, so he
drove off without saying a word. He came to a second stop when he cruised past
Vernon Keene. But Keene wasn’t alone. A small army of men stood around him.
Wes exited his Jeep and approached
the group with zero apprehension.
In the center of the group was
Damien Delgado, the leader of the ESB. Delgado was Latino, but he spoke seven
different languages, his primary languages being Spanish and English. He was
smart, influential, and he was dangerous.
To his left was Santino Martinez;
half Italian, half Latino. Standing to his right was Vernon Keene, the young
man who had once tried to slash Archer’s face with a broken bottle.
“What do you want?” Damien asked,
holding his men at bay with a single hand gesture. They were exceptionally well
trained. If Damien so much as snapped his fingers, they would’ve torn Wes apart
like a pack of feral wolves.
“I want to talk to Keene.”
“Whatever you have to say to Keene,
you can say to me. Think of me as his interpreter.”
“I want to know about Shondra
Wilson.”
“We don’t fuck around with those
disease ridden skanks. We just let them turn their tricks on that end of the
street and we get a piece of the action. That’s it.”
“Shondra Wilson was mutilated and
chopped to pieces.”
“Well, that saddens me. I can’t say
I condone violence against women. But I can’t say I can help you, either. My
gang doesn’t fuck with those girls, period. I don’t need my boys spreading any
bad shit around the neighborhood.”
“So you’re not interested in helping
us find Shondra’s killer?”
“If I knew something, I’d tell you
something. And if you find the bastard who did it, bring him to me and the ESB
will personally take care of it for you.”
3
Archer had an ID on the girl now.
Shondra Wilson. A relative was called in to confirm it. Through tears, her aunt
was able to positively identify what was left of her niece. Wes wanted to ask
the aunt a few questions, but he restrained himself, realizing it wasn’t the
appropriate time.
Dale Craven had spent his entire
Sunday searching for dentists and came up with a name.
Alan Funk.
“Funk flunked out of dental school
eight years ago. He was, quote, the worst student they ever had, unquote.
That’s what his teacher told me over the phone. His classmates said was a
loner, antisocial, considered himself to be the artistic type. He owns and
operates a small art studio on Canon Street. He was working as a waiter at La
Brisa, but he was fired. I called the manager to see what he and the staff
thought of Funk. The phrase the manager used was mentally unstable. Sounds like
our guy to me.”
“We can’t be sure unless we talk to
him first.”
“Aren’t you going to say ‘good work’
or ‘nice job, Dale’ or something to that effect?”
“Don’t push your luck. You’re lucky
I’m even calling you Dale on a regular basis now.”
* * *
They barged into Alan Funk’s studio
on Canon Street without a warrant. But that didn’t matter to Archer. The
absence of a warrant never stopped him from obtaining facts. A reporter was
dead, a young girl was dead, and until this case was solved, more innocent
lives were in danger.
“The fuck are you?” Funk asked,
bemused by their surprise visit.
“I’m Homicide Detective Wes Archer.
This is my partner, Dale Craven. Does the name Kurt Warwick mean anything to
you?”
“Should it?” Funk asked and shrugged
his small shoulders.
“What about Shondra Wilson? Do you
know her?”
“I don’t know either of these people
you mentioned. What is this about exactly?”
Dale admired his paintings on the
wall. They all fell under the category of abstract art, random scribbles and
sporadic patterns and shapes that made no sense to average citizen that lacks
the flavor for art. Dale marveled at them, but not at their designs or at
Funk’s talents. He was marveling at the fact that people could make a living by
selling this worthless crap.
“Can you or anyone account for your
whereabouts on Thursday night?” Thursday was the night Pete Drayton determined
that Shondra Wilson was murdered.
“I had an unveiling at an art
gallery on Fulton Street. That was at seven o’clock. I stayed until ten. Then I
left with a friend and we had coffee and a bite to eat. Then I went home,
watched a movie, and went to bed.”
“The friends name?”
“Nigel Stanwick. He was in town for
the gallery. He was staying at the Bellmore Hotel. But he checked out
unexpectedly Saturday night.”
“I have an idea why,” Archer said,
raising his hand to his nose and pinching it. “Your friend, Nigel will
corroborate your story.”
“He will if you ask him. I’ll give
you his number before you leave.”
* * *
Funk’s alibi checked out. Nigel
Stanwick, and fifty other people at the art gallery, vouched for his
whereabouts that night. He couldn’t have been the one who killed Shondra Wilson
or cut her up. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t rent the room at the Bellmore
Hotel the following night to stash her body for someone else. If Archer learned
anything from his fifteen years with CCPD, it was to always expect the
unexpected.
“Where does that leave us now?” Dale
asked back at the station.
“It sends us back to square one.”
“So what, we just sit on our hands
and wait for the Tooth Fairy to kill again?”
“Or hope he turns himself in. In the
meantime, I want constant surveillance on Alan Funk until we know for sure he’s
clean. If he shits, I want to know how many times he wipes his ass.”
“I’ll have Barclay handle that
assignment,” Dale chuckled.
“And keep going through lists of
dentists. You’re good with computers. Keep trying the search engines. Let’s not
give up here.”
“The last thing you or I do during a
case like this is give up.”
* * *
Wednesday, December 25, 2013.
As the case ran as cold as the brisk weather
in Carter City, Archer had taken Christmas off to catch up on some much needed
rest. He was still running on fumes and he needed a night to refuel his tank.
He ordered Chinese food, drank a few
imported beers, and passed out on his sofa. That was his Christmas. He
considered phoning his estranged father, but he knew it would do more harm than
good.
The phone rang after midnight, jolting
him out of a sound sleep.
He stretched out over the sofa and
picked up the phone on the end table, lifting the receiver to his ear as he
mashed his eyes with the knuckles of his free hand.
“Hello?” Archer groaned.
“Wes, it’s me, Dale. I’m sorry to
disturb you, but I had no other choice. We’ve got another victim…Wes, the
victim is Gina Morris. It’s Mitch Morris’s niece.”
4
Thursday, December 26, 2013.
Wes Archer sat out with Mitch Morris on
the veranda. Morris puffed the end of a cigar, the mellow smoke drifting up to
the sky. On the outside, Morris was trying to play it cool, making it seem like
he was calm and collected.
But Archer could see the murderous
glint in his eyes. The man’s rage was palpable. Someone had taken away his
family, his brother’s little girl, and he wanted revenge. He wanted to see this
man suffer to his last breath.
Archer had seen the Tooth Fairy’s
handiwork at the morgue when Pete Drayton called him in. Gina’s throat had been
slashed, the carotid artery severed. She bled out in minutes. That was after
thirty-eight stabs to the torso had failed to do the job on Gina Morris. The
teeth were extracted after Gina had passed on, but that didn’t make her
suffering any less horrific.
“Wes…I need you to find this piece
of shit. I need you to bring him to me, pronto. I want to see him face-to-face.
I want him to look deep into my eyes before I smash his fucking face in. I want
to break every single bone in his worthless body. And then I want to throw his
crippled ass in a cell and let him rot while I forget he even exists.”
“Mitch, if I can call you Mitch, I’m
your man. I’ll bring this son of a bitch down. Trust me.”
“I know you will, Wes. You’ve never
let us down in the past. Hey, while you’re here, I want to tell you something I
never even told Captain Bishop.” Mitch turned head face towards the porch
lights, so Wes could admire the scars that made up his face. He motioned with
his thumb to the long horizontal scar that had been across his neck for as long
as Wes had known him.
“My own brother, Gina’s father, gave
me this scar. It was thirty years ago. I was a different person in a different
time, a different era. And I did something unforgivable. I slept with my
brother’s wife. You see, I deserved this scar. That’s why he never did time. I
never said jack shit to anybody. And we didn’t talk for thirty years. Not until
last night.
It’s funny how one awful tragedy can
bring people together again. I always wanted to reconcile with my brother, but
not at the expense of my niece. Gina is a blameless victim in all of this. She
doesn’t even fit the pattern of the Tooth Fairy. She wasn’t a hooker or a call
girl.”
“Kurt Warwick didn’t fit the
profile, either,” Wes pointed out.
“All I know is I won’t sleep until
this cocksucker is rotting away behind bars.”
“I better get a move on then,” Wes
said. “I’m not going to let this bastard get away with this.”
* * *
Archer checked in with Dale. Alan
Funk had an alibi for Gina’s murder; just as he had an alibi the night Shondra
Wilson was killed. Wes finally relinquished his suspicions of Alan Funk and
told Craven to tell the officers to stop tailing him.
Funk wasn’t their guy. Unstable,
yes. Eccentric, yes. But he wasn’t a killer. The Tooth Fairy wasn’t the
artistic type. He was the type that made his victims suffer to their last
breath.
Dale’s searches turned up nil as far
as dentists were concerned. He was starting to think the search was a dead end,
but Archer told him to keep at it. In the meantime, Wes decided to visit
someone he hadn’t spoken to in years. Someone he hoped he’d never have to see
again.
His brother.
* * *
Aaron Archer was cozily confined to
a private eight by ten cell in Carter City Maximum Security.
He was serving ten consecutive life
sentences in solitary confinement for the crimes that he committed. Years ago,
Aaron was referred to by the papers as the Devil’s Apprentice, a psychotic
killer who performed satanic rituals on his victims. The number 666 was found
written in blood on the walls of every crime scene.
It was Archer who finally caught him
red-handed, quite literally, and turned him. Gaining a promotion to Homicide in
the process. He didn’t want the promotion. He didn’t turn his brother in for
the promotion. He turned his brother in because he knew it was the right thing
to do.
A lone guard walked Archer through
solitary confinement and led him to Aaron’s cell. He unlocked the door and
opened it, as there was a row of bars on the other side of the door that sat
between Wes and Aaron.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” the
guard said, dismissing himself.
“Well aren’t you a sight for sore
eyes,” Aaron said as he walked to the bars. Prison had not been kind to him.
His wild hair and unkempt beard were the only things that distracted Wes from
his gaunt figure.
“I didn’t come for a family
reunion.”
“I didn’t assume you did for a
second. So why are you here after all these years? Come to gloat about your big
promotion? All you had to do was rat me out to get it. If you stab dad in the
back will they give you a medal?”
“I’m not here to talk about dad. And
I’m sorry for what I did, believe me. I’ve been paying for it for years. But
I’m not here to talk about that either. Do you remember the Tooth Fairy?”
“Of course. I keep tabs on all my
fellow mass-murdering psychopaths.”
“He’s back. We found a car in Lake
Jennings. There was a body in the trunk, multiple stab wounds, teeth ripped
out. This time it was a man; Kurt Warwick. Two more bodies have followed this
discovery. And I have a feeling this guy isn’t going to throw in the towel
until we catch him or kill him.”
“And you need your little brother’s
help? Am I your version of Hannibal Lector?”
“No, Hannibal Lector is intelligent
and well spoken.”
“So, you’ve come for my opinion. How
adorable. No wedding ring, I see. You never tied the knot again, huh?”
“I’m not here to talk about Emily,
either. I need to find this guy before he strikes again.”
“The other victims, were they female
like his others?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re looking at the wrong
ones. Focus on the male victim, the one you found in the lake. He broke the
pattern. And killers don’t break their pattern unless they’re trying to make a
statement, or they need to eliminate a threat.”
“You’re saying this is all about
Warwick?”
“I’m saying find out why he killed
Warwick and you’ll have the answer to every other question your mind holds.”
“Thanks, Aaron. I’ll make sure to
send you a belated Christmas present.”
“And I’ll make sure to toss it in
the trash with all the other crap you’ve sent me over the years.”
* * *
Friday, December 27, 2013.
Archer and Craven were working fast,
but the Tooth Fairy was working faster. By Friday night, the cops had learned
of another victim, her body found inside a dumpster near Elm Street.
It was the usual scenario. Multiple
stab wounds and lacerations to the torso. This time he severed the femoral
artery instead of the carotid. Then he plucked her teeth one by one.
Wes Archer had the cops round up Lex
Belmar and bring him to the morgue where he positively identified the victim as
one his girls, Jackie Brewster.
“Who was she with tonight?”
“Jackie wasn’t working tonight,” Lex
told Archer. He was wearing his poker face again. Archer couldn’t tell if he
was being honest, but he sounded sincere. “She had a chest cold and I didn’t
need her chasing away my business so I told her to rest up. But she was a lot
like Shondra. Always going into business for herself. It wouldn’t surprise me
if she turned a trick or two on her own time.”
Frustrated, Archer dismissed Lex
before he did anything he would later regret. Then he pulled Dale aside and told
him to drop the dentist search. Their killer wasn’t a dentist, a periodontist,
an orthodontist. Their killer was a stone cold psycho without a shred of
compassion.
And if Aaron was right, Kurt Warwick
was key to solving this. So he told Dale to meet him back at the station with
his things. He said they were taking an overnight trip to Ocean City.
But as Archer drove from the morgue
alone in his Jeep, he noticed someone was tailing him. He pulled his Jeep to
the curb and put it in park and the
red car stopped ten feet behind him. Wes exited the Jeep and marched over to
the red car, pulling the driver side door open and yanking the driver out.
It was the bellboy that had knocked
shoulders with Wes inside the vestibule of the Bellmore Hotel. “Matthew?”
“Matthew Smith,” the bellboy said
his full name. “Remember me now?”
“Still doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I was in the academy three years ago.
You said I was weak, that I didn’t have what it took to be a police officer.
Two weeks later, they booted me from the academy.”
“That had nothing to do with me,
kid. They probably booted you because you simply weren’t qualified. Don’t take
it personal.”
“But I did. I wanted to get you guys
back in any way possible. I wanted to cause you some grief. So I decided to
have a little fun at your expense. I was the one who made the call to 911. But
it was just a prank. The guy never told me you’d find anything.”
“Guy, what guy?”
“I don’t remember his name. Come to
think of it, I don’t even think I asked. All I remember is his teeth. They were
all yellow and crooked. I don’t think the guy ever heard of a dentist.”
“Did this guy tell you to call 911?”
“He paid me. Five hundred dollars.
But like I said, I didn’t know you’d find anything.”
“So that’s why you were following
me.”
“Yes. I wanted to come straight to
you. I figured you might understand.”
“I understand you broke the law. And
I can tell you’re holding something back from me. And I can beat it out of you
or you can do the honest thing and tell me.”
“Darren Sanders. The guy said his
name was Darren Sanders.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
* * *
Archer let Matthew Smith off the
hook. In the end, his information had brought them a step closer to apprehending
the Tooth Fairy. And that was all that mattered. He wasn’t doing this for
himself anymore. He was doing it for Mitch. He wasn’t going to let Morris down
again.
He had Officer Barclay look into the
name Darren Sanders and then he and Dale were off to Ocean City.
The drive was two hours, but Wes
made it there with half an hour to spare.
“I’m never driving with you again,”
Dale said as they exited Archer’s Jeep. They checked into a hotel for the rest
of the evening. They were checked out by that morning, as soon as the office of
the Daily Buzz opened.
The staff wasn’t very receptive, but
Archer found one woman willing to help. Her name was Valerie Reed.
“Call me Val,” she said, flashing a
benevolent smile that was reserved specially for Wes. She was a single woman in
her early thirties and Archer couldn’t help but think she looked stunning with
her long legs and shoulder-length blond hair. But he had to keep his mind
focused on the task at hand.
“Pleasure to meet you, Val,” he said
and then it was right down to business. “What exactly did Warwick write for the
paper?
“Anything that was required, but his
specialty was political scandals. He was the one who exposed Thom Whitford as a
crack addict when he was running for mayor in 2012.”
“What was he working on before he
disappeared?”
“I don’t know, but I could check his
laptop. It’s still in his old office.”
Val checked the files, but all of
them were encrypted. “This could take some time,” Val said, rolling her eyes.
“But can you bypass the encryption?”
Dale asked, speaking for Wes who was still quite speechless over the sight of
Valerie.
“I certainly can."
“Then we can wait."
5
Saturday, December 28, 2013.
Craven and Archer returned to Carter
City, and a message from Valerie Reed was already waiting for them at the
station.
Kurt Warwick had been writing a
piece about Roger Devlin, a former mayor who was now running for governor of
Carter City. Warwick was about to blow the lid off of Devlin’s best kept
secret.
Devlin had an illegitimate son he
fathered with a prostitute in ’82. The child’s name was Darren Devlin A.K.A.
Darren Sanders.
“We’ve got him, partner,” Archer
cracked a smile.
“We sure do,” Craven smiled back.
It took them seven hours to bring
Sanders in after they leaned hard on Devlin. He eventually caved to the
pressure and gave his son up in exchange for a lighter sentence.
Meanwhile, Darren Sanders sang like
a canary.
Archer studied him from a distance
in the interrogation room. He was a young man with reddish brown hair, a chin
strap beard, and crooked, yellow teeth. His blue eyes were like sheets of ice.
He killed Kurt Warwick at the behest
of his father, who didn’t want the truth leaking about his connection to Sanders.
In return for that favor, Roger Devlin helped Sanders cover his tracks and fund
his little operation.
Archer was right. He wasn’t a
dentist. He never dreamed of being a dentist. He was a truck driver and he was
also an extremely disturbed individual. He collected the teeth not as a
memento, but as a way of hindering their investigation. He told them if they
wanted all the teeth he collected over the years to search the bottom of Lake
Jennings where they found the car.
Sanders even confessed to Lex Belmar’s
involvement, saying he was paid off to lure the girls to their deaths. He even
supplied the drug that Sanders used to spike Gina Morris’s drink in a bar the
night he killed her.
After they had a signed and dated
confession, Wes listed all the horrible, unrepeatable things he wished would
happen to Darren Sanders during his life vacation in prison.
Then it was Mitch’s turn to
interrogate Sanders. He rolled up his sleeves as the cameras and recorders were
turned off. Then he drove his fist into Sanders jaw. And that was just the
beginning. Archer exited the room quietly, but he could still hear Sanders
screams on the other side of the door. And those screams brought another rare
smile to his face.
* * *
Lex Belmar got off with a slap on
the wrist for giving up additional information about Sanders, including leading
the cops to an unmarked gravesite of another unreported victim of the Tooth
Fairy.
Sanders had failed to mention the
name Dina Murphy in his confession. But Dina had been one of Belmar’s girls,
and Belmar had led them straight to her and this was what got him off the hook.
But that doesn’t mean Archer let him
off the hook, too. He paid a visit to the Elm Street Boys with a sweaty fistful
of cash in hand. Then the Elm Street Boys paid a little visit to Lex Belmar.
They shattered his nose. They
cracked his ribs. They busted his legs. They rearranged his face with the
carelessness of a plastic surgeon. They kicked, stomped, battered, and beat
Lex within an inch of his pathetic life.
And Wes watched it all happen from
ten feet away. Him and Dale Craven. After it was all said and done, they shared
a beer.
“Good job, Dale,” Archer said.
“Good job, Wes,” Dale said,
chuckling.
“It feels odd being on a first name
basis.”
“You didn’t have a problem when it
came to Ms. Reed. ‘Call me Val’. She was so smitten with you.”
“I’ve been thinking about calling
her,” Wes confessed.
“You’ve got nothing to lose and
everything to gain.” But that was a lie. Wes had already lost everything he
loved, including his first wife. But it was never too late to try again. So he
picked up the phone and made the call.
“Hello, Val? It’s Wes Archer. Are
you free for dinner this Monday?”
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