Play To Kill

Chapter Sixteen

Grace couldn't explain it, not even to herself, and it was embarrassing. She missed her house. They all spent a lot of nights at Harley's when they were working on a pressure deadline - it was a natural, comfortable thing. She had a guest room designated just for her, as they all did, with furniture, a stash of clothes, and everything in the world Harley thought would make her comfortable. But it wasn't her house.

It was too big, for one thing; three nightmare stories of too many points of ingress and egress to watch; too many big open rooms that put you endless yards away from anyplace to hide. She could take a breath in her tiny house with its tiny rooms, steel doors, and barred windows, but here, she never felt really safe. Harley understood that, and occasionally reminded her that he had a gate across his driveway and enough weapons stashed to arm a small country. But he didn't have enough security cameras; didn't have a pressure pad on his front porch; didn't even have a gun on his person at all times, or a wary eye and ear for anything out of order.

Harley couldn't get over the silly idea that most people were basically good. He didn't think the UPS guy was a terrorist, or that the mailman was a psychopath. None of them did. Only Grace.

That difference in perspective had put her at her computer station, searching for the worst this morning, while Harley, Roadrunner, Annie, and Special Agent John Smith frantically scrambled to grab the brass ring that was the victory of good over evil. They had to believe they had a chance. That given just a little time, they could find whoever it was that was Bert's barmaid in a city of roses, near deer, before a killer took that person's life.

'Okay, okay,' Harley filled the room with his voice in boom mode. 'No liquor licenses in Portland with the name of Bert, which may not mean anything. Could be a grandfathered license that goes with the establishment instead of the current owner - Annie, can you check city of Portland ordinances, see how the licensing works?'

'You got it.' Annie clicked at her keyboard with fingers flat, so she didn't chip her nails. They were still polished pearl to match the Gatsby outfit she'd worn yesterday instead of today's maroon silk, a tragic measure of how quickly she'd been forced to make herself presentable when Roadrunner had wakened them in a panic. The jacket was feather-trimmed and cropped, the pants were wide and fluttery, and thank God she'd remembered the T-strap pumps or she would have looked totally undone. She focused on her task and blanked out Harley barking orders to the rest of them.

'So Portland was the City of Roses - maybe too easy. Let's do some free association. Forget the city's nickname or moniker; what other cities bring roses to mind?'

'Pasadena,' Agent John Smith piped in. 'The Rose Parade.' 'Exactly. Check the liquor licenses there, see if you can find a Bert. What else have you got, Roadrunner?'

'Austin, surprisingly. They've got rose growers all over the place.'

'Christ.' Harley slapped his forehead. 'Every rose I ordered for the back gardens came from Jackson and Perkins. Damn. Where the hell are they? Medford, Oregon. That's it. Grace, can you check that out?'

'I'm working another angle,' Grace replied, never taking her eyes from her screen.

'Okay, I'll tackle that one…'

And so it went.

Ten minutes later Harley clapped his hands together and shouted, 'Hallelujah! I got a Bert on a liquor license for Medford. Place is named Chesterfield's.'

'You have a number for Medford Police?' John Smith had his cell phone flipped open, and started punching in numbers as Harley rattled them off.

Grace sighed and rolled her chair back from her desk, although she kept her eyes on the monitor. 'Wait. You need to see this first.'

FBI Agent John Smith watched, mystified, as the others rose slowly from their stations and moved toward Grace's desk. No questions, no uncertainty. If Grace MacBride said they needed to see something, they dropped what they were doing and moved. Grace's screen was blacked out, her hand poised over the mouse. She looked up at them one by one. 'Are you ready for this? It isn't pretty.'

Smith said, 'Go.'

The film was remarkably steady and clear; obviously not produced by some cheap handheld. The camera panned around a thick forest of pine trees surrounding a deserted parking lot, one security light towering on a single pole, spreading a wash of blue-white glow over the night scene. Zoom to door, the darkened neon sign overhead.

'Wait,' Harley stabbed at the screen. 'Does that say Chesterfield's? Looks like a "C," then an "H'

'We'll check it later,' Grace said. 'Just watch.'

A woman came out of the door, closed and locked it behind her, then walked out into the lot. She paused once to look up at the sky and smile, then walked a few more steps forward and stopped dead.

'She saw the camera,' Annie whispered.

And then in the next split second, almost before they had time to process what they were seeing, a shadow moved into frame from the darkness at the side and the gleam of a knife appeared at the woman's throat. They saw only a masculine arm wrapped around her shoulders, and the metal of the knife.

'Jesus,' Roadrunner whispered.

'Don't,' the woman said, and the camera saw her eyes, and the tears welling. 'Don't hurt me.' And then, bizarrely, 'It's my birthday.'

'This is horrible,' Harley said quietly, and then their eyes flickered as the action on the film stuttered forward. There was a struggle, a short scream, and at the end of the fevered action, the woman was on the asphalt with her knees folded sideways, a massive choke chain around her neck, a leash attached to it. She gagged as the leash was pulled and the collar tightened, then she was dragged out of frame.

'Dear God,' Annie whispered. 'What's he's doing…?'

Grace held up one finger as the film wobbled and then jerked wildly. 'He's repositioning the camera for the next scene.'

And now they saw the woman sitting in front of a small car, her knees tucked up to her chest, her arms spread in a cross, tied to the bumper. The leash was fastened to pull her head backwards, exposing her neck. The man's back came into view as he approached her, the flash of the knife swishing back and forth, threatening her, coming closer and closer while the camera watched, and the woman, God bless her, made no sound. The tears streamed down her cheeks, reflecting in the light of the security lamp overhead, but she was in the moment, watching her assailant, ready to fight, and waiting for her time.

Annie closed her eyes.

'Don't, Annie,' Grace said quietly. 'You'll miss who she is.'

The woman sat curled on the pebbled surface of the parking lot, watching the knife swish back and forth, closer and closer to her neck, but by God she wasn't going to give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing her terror, and when the moment came, her cowboy-booted foot kicked out and connected between her assailant's legs, and with his squeal of pain a triumphant exhalation spilled out of her mouth.

'God DAMN you stupid smelly BITCH!'

And now Grace closed her eyes, because she'd already seen what came next. She'd already seen the flash of the knife at the woman's throat and the spill of blood that flooded her neck, and she didn't want to see it again. Ever.

The screen went black, and no one said anything for a long moment. Finally, Agent Smith turned away from Grace's station and walked back toward the table by the window that had become his place. 'I'll call Medford,' was all he said. He used the landline, and when someone answered, he put it on speaker. 'This is Special Agent Smith of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'd like to speak to the officer in charge.'

'You got him,' a gravelly voice replied. 'Chief Frost here, and - mister, I've got my hands full this morning. Can I get back to you?'

'I don't think so, Chief Frost. I'll fill you in on the back story later; for right now, I'm advising you of a homicide committed in your district last night at a place called Chesterfield's.'

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. 'Who did you say you were?'

'Special Agent Smith of the-'

'I'm going to have to verify that with a callback to your office.'

Smith winced. 'I'm not actually in my office at the moment…'

'Uh-huh. Well, where are you now, Mr. Smith? Perhaps we could meet and have a little talk in person.'

Smith never lost his temper. You weren't allowed to do that in the Bureau, but this yahoo was wasting precious time…

'He thinks you're a nutcase,' Grace said.

'Or the killer,' Annie added.

Grace picked up the receiver on her phone. 'Chief Frost?

This is Grace McBride of Monkeewrench in Minneapolis. We sent you a copy of our software two days ago.'

'Oh, hey. Yeah. It was delivered yesterday. Thanks for that. But I'm a little confused here. First I'm talking to some guy claiming to be a Fed, now somehow you're on the line…'

'He is a Fed, Chief. He's in our office and we have you on speaker. We're working with the Bureau on some homicides with a Web connection, and we just finished watching a film of a murder in the parking lot of Chesterfield's.'

You just watched the film? You mean, like, a movie?'

'It's on the Internet.'

'Okay, sorry, but this is a little hard to believe…'

Grace closed her eyes. 'The woman was tied to the front bumper of a Ford Tempo and her throat was slashed.'

'Jesus.'

'Listen, Chief, we'll e-mail you the details as soon as we hang up, but right now you need to get your men out there to contain the murder scene while it's still fresh, and Agent Smith wants the local FBI in on the investigation.'

Chief Frost sighed and cleared his throat. 'I got no problem with the Feds joining in, but there's no murder. There was an attack, but the woman survived, at least so far. She's in ICU, hanging on by a thread - and I want a copy of that film right now.'