VI.
Tomas leaned back against the wall of the dark, narrow side street, took another deep drag, and wiped his eyes. Man, if his dad found him doing this--on break at the store, no less--he'd blow a fuse. But Tomas was an upstanding junior citizen otherwise. His dad made damn sure of that.
Holding in his breath, Tomas willed the bittersweet fumes to dull at least some of the pain. This whole thing was his father's fault--well, not the whole thing; his dad wasn't a psycho murderer, after all--but just look at the fit he'd thrown when he found the condoms in Tomas' room.
You never asked me her name, didn't even ask to meet her--just how old she was. And then yelled at me about statutory rape. Tomas exhaled with a cough that was half sob. Yeah, well, then she was statutorily raping me, too. Rape. We were gonna get married soon as we were old enough.
But Tomas knew his father's real worry was that he'd turn out like his no-good bum grandfather. His dad had pulled himself up by his butt-hairs to get where he was, and Tomas didn't want to ruin that for him.
Stamping out the last of the joint, Tomas sprayed several squirts of breath mint into his mouth--and then on his shirt and pants for good measure. The Lee's, the elderly couple who ran the Level 27 Goodwill store that he volunteered at, were nice folks--a little slow on the uptake, but nice--and he didn't want to get them into any trouble.
Tomas vowed to himself that he'd tell his dad everything once his shift at the store was over. Maybe that would help patch things up between them.
A noise behind the dumpster startled him, and he leaned around to see. "Hey kitty," he crooned, "what are you doing out here?" The eyes reflecting back at him blinked once, then rose--and rose. Alley cats don't get that big, Tomas thought in apprehension. Then something slammed into him, and the world tilted crazily.
It hurt too much to draw breath to scream, even as he watched the knife come down in slow and careful precision.
* * *
"Stupid goddamn overeager rookie dickheads!" Miller cursed as he made his way back through the station. There was a woman waiting in his office when he walked in, and he immediately regretted his language.
"Ms. Branch. It's good to see you again. How are you doing?"
She took his proffered hand timidly, and said, "The other detective, that pretty young woman--"
"Detective Lowell."
"Yes, Detective Lowell. She said I should come in here. She said to tell you what I'd told her."
"She hasn't called me about this. Are you sure she asked you to come in?"
"Oh, yes. She said it was very important."
Miller sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. She said, she said, she said. "Did Detective Lowell say anything else?"
Ms. Branch sat very still for a moment, then looked up at Miller. "Oh. Yes. She said to tell you she had one other thing to do, and then she would come right back here to the office."
"I guess this means the fat lady hasn't sung yet?" Agnes leaned through the doorway, looking out of place in her starched, white lab coat.
"No, the fat lady hasn't sung," Miller said, momentarily forgetting Ms. Branch. "But those baby cops'll be singing soprano before I get done with them. Why is it that every bald man on the station has been mistaken for our killer?"
Agnes smiled and said, "I have the information your partner asked for. And as it was all she could do to step into my parlor to ask for it, I figured I'd make it a little easier on her by coming here."
Miller excused himself to Ms. Branch and pulled Agnes out of the office. "Does this have something to do with the Branch girl?" he murmured.
Agnes handed several sheets of paper to him. "Actually, I think this may have something to do with all your victims."
The phone inside Miller's office chirped, and he stepped back in to answer it. A long moment later, the papers in his hand forgotten, he said, "I'll be there in two minutes... Does Bonito know yet?... Shit."
"What is it?" Agnes asked as Miller hung up.
"They just found another one."
Sitting alone in the corner chair, Darla Branch began to quietly cry.
* * *
Chief Bonito had never been a large man, but it had always seemed that he could fill up a room just by walking into it. Now he was barely even a silhouette behind the tinted windows of the police skimmer.
Miller looked away from the vehicle, but his eyes refused to focus again on the body bag, instead settling on the smiling face on the Goodwill store across the street. It was someone else's murdered child, and the worst violation of privacy he could think of was to intrude on another parent's grief. All of the victims had been someone's children, of course, but even the death of Cassie Branch hadn't hit Miller like this.
This wasn't some poor, single mother he'd never met before. This was Gil Bonito, who had given Miller the same privacy when Tyrell had been killed.
Miller had arrived late on the scene; the coroner and EMTs were already there and finishing up. No one had wanted to leave the body of a station official's child out in the open for very long. He flipped open his phone and dialed Marina's number, but got only her voice-mail. He sighed and turned back toward the police skimmer. They would catch up tonight at the restaurant. For now, better a friend to drive the chief back than some faceless junior uniform.
The department's interrogation room was the quietest place to be found, and held at least the illusion of privacy.
Miller watched behind the anonymity of the one-way viewscreen as Chief Bonito entered hesitantly, then sat in the chair facing Ms. Branch. The chief spoke quietly to Ms. Branch, then passed a photograph to her. She nodded.
Bonito's head bowed and Ms. Branch's hand went to her mouth. Her other hand found the chief's, and her face crumpled in tears.
Miller decided then that if and when they found the killer, he would not arrest him. It would cost him his career, and possibly his freedom, but he would do everything he could to make sure the man didn't leave the station alive.
