Kiss Of Evil

61

As soon as Bobby said the word midnight, Paris knew that it was not going to be enough time. He also knew that it was a favor he would probably never be able to repay, one for which he had not even presumed to ask. Bobby Dietricht and Greg Ebersole are both in possession of conclusive forensic evidence in a capital murder case and are willfully delaying the submission of these facts to their superior officer. This is obstruction of justice at the very least, not to mention the violation of a truckload of other laws.

Serious jail time.

At midnight, Bobby Dietricht will have no choice but to place the file on Randall Elliott’s desk. And at that time, Captain Elliott will have no choice but to issue a warrant for the arrest of John Salvatore Paris.

“You all right with this?” Paris asks.

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Bobby Dietricht says. Greg just nods.

Paris had told them everything. Rebecca. Mike Ryan. Jeremiah Cross. Demetrius Salters. It had come out in a steady stream, the tension with it. He could deal with someone setting him up.

But, by midnight?

The problem is that they could not get a search warrant for Rebecca’s apartment without cause, and cause could not be established until the lab reports were submitted. Besides, there is nothing physical tying her to the jacket. To search Rebecca’s apartment, legally, would be to implicate Paris.

Bobby Dietricht and Greg Ebersole will work Rebecca D’Angelo’s apartment on their own time. Starting right now.

Bobby adds: “Besides, I’m married, Jack. I ain’t fuckin’ dead. I saw her at the Cleveland League party. You don’t have to explain a damn thing.”

“You don’t think I-”

Bobby holds up his gloved hand, stopping him. “I don’t know a cop in this city who would.”

Paris immediately regrets every negative thought he’d ever had about Detective Robert Dietricht. “I don’t know how to thank you two.”

“Three,” Greg says.

“Three?”

“Yeah,” Greg says with a wink. “I guarantee you Mike Ryan’s working this detail.”

Paris heads upstairs, opens his apartment door, sees a FedEx envelope on the floor. “Do Not Bend: Photos” a label says on the outside. The photographs Mercedes’s brother took. Paris is not exactly in the mood to look at himself. He tosses the envelope on the table, pours himself coffee, gulps a cup. Twenty minutes until he has to be at the Westwood Road house. Bobby and Greg are off to the Heights.

How could he have been so fucking stupid? How could he have thought, even for a minute, that a woman like Rebecca-or whatever the hell her name is-would be the slightest bit interested in him?

She is good though, he thinks. Jesus Christ she is good.

But why is she doing this? Could he have been that wrong when he looked into her eyes? Or does the killer have something on her?

Regardless, he does not relish the idea of her on a witness stand. He grabs his keys, his Kevlar vest from the dining room table. Manny perks for a moment, but soon senses he isn’t involved. He rolls over on the couch.

Paris is almost out the door when the phone rings.

“Paris.”

“Jack, Tonya Grimes.”

“What do you have?”

“I have half. I have a listing of a homicide victim named Anthony C. del Blanco. The funny thing is, that’s all I have.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all I have is a stat. There’s no paper.”

Paris’s heart sinks.

Mikey.

No.

“Nothing at all?” Paris asks.

“Not a shred. No interviews, no photos, no autopsy reports. Zip. I looked under other spellings, just in case it was misfiled, but nothing turned up. Just a computer entry listing him as a vic. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Paris says, absently. “Thanks, Tonya.”

“Listen, I’m getting a fax right now. It may be about this Jeremiah Cross. Let me call you right back.”

“Okay.” Paris hangs up the phone, his mind beginning to connect the dots between Mike Ryan and Sarah Weiss. It is then that he notices the blinking message light on his answering machine. He pours a half-cup of coffee from his Thermos, glances at his watch. He has time. He hits Playback.

“Hi… it’s Mercedes… ’bout nine-thirty… I was wondering… what’s the penalty for killing a little brother in Ohio?… can’t be much… probably like a fine or something, right?… anyway… I know you’re not there… you’re off to the big raid I’m not allowed to attend and all… kidding… anyway… I just talked to my brother Julian and, after enduring much threat, he confessed that he never showed up to take your picture, so whoever you met that day was definitely not my brother… anyway, seeing as he’s only fifteen and can’t exactly drive over there tonight, especially with my foot up his ass, I’m going to get in my car right now and drive over myself and wait for you… sorry again… you can’t trust Puerto Rican/Irish people… what can I tell you… good luck… okay… bye… happy new year… bye.”

Fifteen, Paris thinks. What the hell is she talking about? Her brother Julian is only fifteen? Who the fuck was it at the Justice Center that day, then? And who the fuck was it in the parking lot at the Cleveland League party?

It hits him.

What was it that Mercedes had said the day she called him from Deadlines, the day she had told him that her brother might show up to take pictures?

“Well, at the moment, there is a fabulously handsome, ethnically diverse male sitting right next to me, trying to ply me with fruity cocktails…”

Paris dives for the dining room table and the FedEx envelope that contains the photographs. He tears it open to find an eight by ten of himself standing by the window in the Justice Center lobby, a bright red hole drawn in the center of his forehead.

He has seen his face.

Before he can pick up the phone to call in the description, he notices something hanging from the inside of his apartment door. He tries to move toward it, cannot.

As the Amanita muscaria begins to rocket through his veins, he understands.

He understands why no one came out of the back room at Ronnie’s. He understands that every single move he has made in the past week or so has been watched, observed, noted. He understands that the psychopath the entire department is looking for had known he was heading to Ronnie’s for coffee and had made sure that Jack Paris had gotten a special brew, a brew of whatever was in Mike Ryan’s bloodstream the day he died, a brew intended for the entire stakeout team, and Jack Paris suddenly knows that, if the feeling beginning to surge through him now is any indication of where he is going, it will surely end in a dread that is deeper, and colder, than any he has ever known.