Whisper in the Dark Read online

  Whisper in the Dark

  Robert Gregory Browne

  THE SOULS OF THE DEAD

  Naked. Incoherent. Covered with blood. That's how Detective Frank Blackburn finds her-a beautiful Jane Doe brandishing a pair of scissors near the scene of a brutal murder. Is she the perpetrator? Or is she the only eyewitness to the handiwork of Vincent Van Gogh, a twisted serial killer with an "artistic" bent?

  THE SINS OF THE LIVING

  To find out, Blackburn takes her to renowned psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan. But Tolan has problems of his own. One year ago today, his beloved wife Abby was savagely slaughtered by the very same serial killer. And when Jane Doe starts saying things that only Abby could know… about long-buried secrets…about the night of Abby's death…Tolan finds himself headed for a confrontation with his past that could well lead to a breakdown.

  Now it's up to Frank Blackburn to find the connection between Jane, Tolan…and Vincent-before the killer strikes again.

  Robert Gregory Browne

  Whisper in the Dark

  For Leila

  ONE

  The Woman Who Wasn’t Quite Myra

  1

  It was a pretty uneventful night until the naked lady tried to kill him.

  Dubosky was just coming off a twenty-hour shift, had just dropped off a couple of Latino kids who had gotten frisky on his backseat, when he decided to forgo the usual last lap around the neighborhood and head straight for the cab shack.

  His dispatcher, Freddy, a waste of space if there ever was one, was on the radio trying to get him to respond.

  “Hey, numbnuts, I got another pickup for you.”

  Dubosky ignored him.

  He couldn’t count the number of times he’d heard that phlegm-throttled voice telling him to get his ass in gear, telling him he was one step away from the unemployment line, telling him if he put even a single dent in his rig, it was coming out of his own pocket.

  Numbnuts, huh?

  Fuck him. And fuck this job, too.

  Dubosky didn’t know whether it was age or sheer exhaustion that made him feel this way, but after eighteen years on what seemed like an endless circling of the city, he was ready to crash this friggin’ rig, grab a shotgun, and start blasting away.

  Freddy was first on his list.

  Dubosky had been working twelve-, sixteen-, twenty-hour shifts for the better part of his life. He couldn’t pick his kids out of a high school yearbook, and if his poor wife hadn’t taken on a lover by now, it was a miracle, because he didn’t have the energy to eat, let alone screw. Even half a dozen hits of extra-strength Levitra wouldn’t get Old Rusty to stir.

  There comes a point in your life, he told himself, you gotta ignore all good sense, forget about doing the right thing, and think about one person: you.

  Which was exactly what he planned to do the moment he got back to the cab shack. Tell Freddy to shove this job up his stinky little bunghole, then get out into the world and breathe some free friggin’ air. Fill his lungs and keep filling ’em and never look back.

  By the time he turned onto The Avenue, he was already lost in a daydream about a weeklong cruise in the Greek Islands, Judy hooked on one arm, sipping a piña colada, as they headed back to their cabin to put Old Rusty to the test.

  He was pretty deep into it when a shadow flashed under a nearby street lamp. Before he knew Christ from Hosea, a figure darted in front of his windshield.

  Dubosky slammed the brakes, his rear end fishtailing, his tires making a sick squeal beneath him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for the inevitable thud of bumper against bone.

  But it didn’t come.

  Instead, he skidded to an unimpeded stop in the middle of the street and looked out to see nothing, nothing but the streetlights and the parked cars and the stark empty blacktop with its newly painted lines.

  What the hell?

  Instinct drew his attention to a space on his left. Huddled between two parked cars, trembling in the cold night air, was a street hag — this one more street than hag — about thirty or so from the looks of her, and as naked as a two-year-old at bath time.

  Except for the blood all over her hands and face.

  Jesus. Had he hit her?

  Dubosky cranked the parking brake, then threw open his door and took a tentative step toward her. “You okay, lady?”

  It was a ridiculous question. She was, after all, crouched there in her birthday suit, covered with about a year’s worth of grime and fresh blood, a skinny little thing looking what could generously be described as disoriented. As he approached her, he realized it didn’t much matter what he said. She was tuned to another frequency.

  He was about three feet away from her, trying not to stare at her tits — which were, admittedly, pretty remarkable despite the circumstances — when she suddenly looked up at him with fierce, untamed eyes.

  Then she pounced.

  It was only then that Dubosky realized she was holding a pair of scissors. They arced high in the air — the windup before the pitch. Halfway through the pounce, Dubosky did the instinctive thing again and put a fist in her face.

  The woman went down with a whimper, scissors clattering on the blacktop, and stopped moving.

  Friggin’ nutcase.

  Dubosky crouched beside her and winced. She smelled like roadkill. But she was still breathing. And despite the blood, he couldn’t see any major damage.

  Was it even hers?

  Glancing at the scissors, which also had a fair amount of blood on them, he wondered if this was the first time she’d tried to use them.

  The radio squawked behind him. “Where the hell are you, you goddamn potato chugger?”

  Dubosky grabbed a blanket from the trunk, then got on the radio and told Fuckhead Freddy to shut his cake eater and call the cops.

  * * *

  Solomon St. fort was coming up on the Dumpster behind The Burger Basket, looking to score a late-night snack, when he heard someone crying. It came from inside the alleyway, the deep, wracking sobs of a soul in pain.

  Solomon hesitated, listening to the sound, torn between hunger and curiosity.

  His gaze drifted to the Dumpster. The Burger Basket routinely dumped their leftovers, filling the bin with stuff they couldn’t unload before closing time. Solomon could smell the chili dogs from ten yards away.

  But the Dumpster wasn’t going anywhere, and the sobbing intrigued him. Moving into the alley, he headed toward the source of the sound, stopping short when he saw a man in a ratty overcoat sitting in the narrow space between two overflowing trash cans, knees to his chest, head in his hands, crying like a lost child.

  Solomon immediately recognized him. “Clarence?”

  The man looked up sharply, tears streaming, ragged tracks on a dirty face. The sobs grew louder when he saw Solomon. “She’s dead, man. She’s dead.”

  Solomon frowned. “Who’s dead? Who you talkin’ about?”

  “Who you think? Myra, that’s who.”

  Myra was a stone-cold junkie who had hooked up with Clarence about six months ago. Fine-looking white woman who used to be a swimsuit model, although she didn’t have much meat on her bones these days. Solomon had just seen her this afternoon, over at the Brotherhood of Christ soup kitchen, thinking she didn’t look quite right.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I told you she was sick, man. Coughin’ up all that shit. Then she goes and puts the needle in her arm and bugs out right there in front of me, eyes rolling up inside her head. Next thing I know she’s on the ground and she ain’t movin’.”

  Solomon felt gut-punched. He hadn’t known Myra very long, but he liked her. Had a kind of fatherly affection for her. “How long ago was this?”

>   “I don’t know. Couple hours.”

  “And you just left her?”

  “She’s dead, man. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t you know nothin’ about junkies?” Solomon said. “Just ’cause they stop movin’ don’t mean they’re dead. You shoulda got some help.”

  “From who?” Clarence cried. “The cops? They ain’t interested in some hopped-up street whore.”

  “Bullshit. You got scared, so you run away.”

  Solomon remembered how Myra had once shown him a picture from a magazine. Kept it folded up in the back pocket of those ratty jeans she wore. It was an old ad for men’s cologne, a younger Myra staring out at the camera with pouty lips and fuck-me eyes.

  He heaved a weary sigh. “If she wasn’t dead then,” he said, “she probably is now. Where’d you leave her?”

  Clarence wiped his face with the sleeve of his overcoat. “Over at our place, under the lean-to.”

  “Come on.” Solomon said, then reached out and pulled Clarence to his feet.

  “Where we goin’?”

  “Where you think we’re goin’?”

  “No way, man. I don’t wanna see her lookin’ like that.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you want. We’re gonna do right by Myra. She was a good woman.”

  Clarence started crying again. Solomon threw an arm around his shoulder and the two men walked the three blocks back to the freeway underpass, where Clarence and Myra shared a small cardboard lean-to among the litter of street people who called the river bottom home.

  When they got there, they were surprised to find the rutted earth beneath the lean-to was empty except for Myra’s dope kit, a jumble of plastic bags she used for blankets, and her clothes, which were scattered in the dirt.

  No sign of Myra anywhere. Dead or otherwise.

  “You sure this is where you left her?”

  “I may be a drunk,” Clarence said, “but I ain’t crazy. She was right here.”

  “Well, she ain’t here now.” Solomon picked up Myra’s jeans, dug in the back pocket, and found that same folded magazine page she’d shown him. He opened it up and stared at it, thinking how pretty she looked, thinking what a shame it was that she’d let the needle get ahold of her.

  Clarence was crying again.

  Then a voice from the darkness said, “You looking for the white girl?”

  Solomon turned and saw Billy Eagleheart, a burly Mitskanaka Indian, curled up under his own lean-to.

  “Yeah,” Solomon said. “Somebody come and collect her?”

  “Collect her? Last I saw, she was up on her own two, more or less.”

  Solomon and Clarence exchanged looks, and Clarence immediately stopped crying. “She’s alive?”

  “Stood right where you’re standing,” Billy said, then nodded to the jeans in Solomon’s hand. “I don’t know what she was on, but she was ripping off them rags like they were burning her skin. Had me wishin’ I had a handful of dollar bills.” He grinned at the memory.

  “Don’t you be playin’ with us, Billy.”

  “I ain’t playin’ with nobody. Watched her stumble on up that hill, naked as a goddamn prairie bird. Looked like she was on a mission.” He chuckled. “Maybe she needed some new shoes to match her ensemble.”

  Solomon turned, looking at Clarence. “You hear that? All that crying for nothin’.”

  “No way,” Clarence said. “She was dead. I know dead when I see it.”

  “Yeah, and I know dumb when I’m lookin’ at it.”

  Solomon nodded thanks to Billy, returned the magazine page to Myra’s pocket, then gathered up the rest of her clothes and hooked a thumb at Clarence. “Let’s go round her up before the cops do.”

  As they headed up the embankment toward Main Street, Billy said, “You find her, let me know what she does for an encore.”

  * * *

  Betty Burkus found the body.

  She was an old woman who had trouble sleeping, the extra weight and the constant heartburn and the sleep apnea making life twice as miserable as it should have been. She had rolled out of bed a little after one A.M., hoping a glass of ice water would kill the fire in her stomach.

  Standing at the refrigerator in her small courtyard apartment, she glanced out her kitchen window and noticed that, across the way, the Janovic door was hanging wide open.

  She sighed. Carl Janovic had been a pain in her backside since the day he moved in. The way he and his friends paraded in and out of that apartment, she might as well have had a revolving door installed. It was times like this Betty wished to God she’d never agreed to take on management duties. A two-hundred-dollar rent reduction was hardly worth all the fuss and bother.

  Moving to her phone, she picked up the handset and pressed number three — she had Janovic on speed dial, that’s how much trouble he was — then listened to it ring and ring. Not too surprised when she didn’t get an answer, she sighed again, cradled the phone, then threw on a robe and headed into the courtyard.

  She was halfway to the Janovic apartment when she started to reconsider this little excursion. It was, after all, well past bedtime for most normal human beings, and an open front door at almost one-thirty in the morning was not a sign of welcome. Especially when you factored in the complete lack of lights. No porch light, nothing in the foyer, the place as black and silent as an abandoned mine.

  But despite her complaints, Betty had always believed that if you take on a job you should do that job, so she soldiered on, trudging up to the open door and peering inside. “Mr. Janovic?”

  She waited for an answer and got none. Also not a surprise. Chances were pretty good that Janovic had gone out with one of his light-in-the-loafers boyfriends and was so busy playing grabass he’d forgotten to close his door. Not that Betty had anything against his type. They could do whatever they wanted in the privacy of their own homes, but did they always have to flaunt it?

  She leaned past the doorway. “Mr. Janovic?”

  Still no answer. She was about to say to hell with it and pull the door shut when an odd smell wafted into her nasal radar. Betty frowned, sniffed. It smelled like… well, to be frank, like someone had fouled his pants.

  Was it a plumbing problem? Had Janovic gone and clogged up his… Oh, God, the visual popping into her head right now was too awful to even contemplate.

  Yet that smell was unmistakable. And if the plumbing was clogged, that meant it was up to her to get it taken care of.

  Betty sighed again. Why, oh why had she ever taken this stupid job? Stepping into the foyer, she fumbled for the light switch. There wasn’t much point in saying anything out loud, but she nevertheless tried a third time: “Mr. Janovic? Are you home?”

  She flicked the switch, half expecting to find a pile of excrement in the middle of the polished wood floor.

  What she found instead was Carl Janovic, lying faceup in a pool of blood, wearing only a bra, panties, and a shiny blond wig, his eyes wide and lifeless, his bare chest and abdomen covered with dark, gaping puncture wounds.

  That was when Betty Burkus backed out of the apartment and vomited a night’s worth of antacids, thin mints, and leftover Hamburger Helper into the ficus tree on Janovic’s front porch.

  2

  “Hiya, Frankie boy. Where’s your partner?”

  “I’m dining solo these days.”

  “Yeah? There’s a nice little after-dinner snack waiting for you inside.”

  Detective Frank Blackburn was in a surly mood. The crime scene was an upscale courtyard apartment complex called the Fontana Arms and the crime tech wagons had beat him there. He was still half-asleep as he approached the gated entranceway, where Kat Pendergast, a cute, coltish patrol officer, was waiting for him.

  “You the first responder?” he asked.

  “Me and Hogan, yeah.”

  Kat opened the gate and motioned Blackburn past. They moved together into the courtyard, where a platoon of crime scene techs flowed in and out of an open apartment door
way. Across the way, a fat woman in a faded bathrobe watched the proceedings from her kitchen window, hand clutched to her throat in horror.

  Blackburn turned to Pendergast. “How many units this place have?”

  “About ten.”

  “You scare up any witnesses?”

  “Not so far,” Kat said. “Hogan and a couple of the backup boys are shaking ’em out of bed as we speak.”

  They moved up to the doorway, Blackburn taking in the glassy-eyed twenty-something who lay in the middle of the floor.

  Jesus, what a mess. The bra, panties, and wig were a nice touch — and the reason they’d dragged him out of bed. Even a hint of sexual assault and it was his squad’s catch.

  Special Victims.

  “Lovely,” he said. “Who is he?”

  “Carl Joseph Janovic. Twenty-four years old. Moved in about three months ago. Landlady thought it was important to let us know he’s a high-octane butt pilot.”

  “Looks like somebody was afraid to fly.” Blackburn stared at the dark wounds and the blood, which had splattered just about every surface within a three-foot radius. He sighed. “Why do I always get stuck with the nasty ones?”

  “Because nobody likes you.”

  Blackburn shot her a look and Kat threw her hands up. “Don’t kill the messenger. Just ask Carmody.”

  “Carmody can kiss my ass,” Blackburn said, then offered just enough of a smile to let her know he was kidding. Which he wasn’t.

  Truth be told, Blackburn had never been a particularly popular addition to the unit, a fact he attributed to his unbridled insensitivity and severe lack of social skills.

  His ex-partner, Susan Carmody, an uptight Republican Goldilocks who was more suited to a career with FOX News than a detective squad, seemed to take offense to his occasional remarks about her rear end — which, Republican or not, was quite formidable.

  Blackburn had grown up with four older brothers, in a household where such lapses of decorum were not only encouraged, but served as a measure of your masculinity.