Damn, is it my birthday? What’s today? The date on my flip cell shows October 15th.
Jason’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know it was your birthday.”
“Neither did I don’t worry about it.” I taste the wine trying to suppress my repulsed face. “Wow, sir. Chianti? I have to say, I respect a man who knows good wine.”
He shrugs. “Cut the shit, Lobos, I know you hate wine. If it were up to me, I would have gotten you a bottle of that scotch you like, but my wife insisted scotch would be insinuating something.”
Scotch would’ve been better. I fucking hate wine.
“For a free bottle of scotch, she can insinuate any damn thing she wants, but I can choke down wine, no worries. Besides, with all the junk I eat, it’s good to clean out the old arteries every now and then.”
“Lobos, you drink like a fish. If your arteries aren’t squeaky clean by now, I don’t know what to tell ya,” he says with a shit-eating grin.
The sturdy, tall black-haired wiseass is Detective Jack Costigan. He transferred here from the sex crimes unit. He has seen some pretty fucked up shit, from pedophiles to sadistic serial rapist. If you’re not prepared for a head full of nightmares, don’t ask him about what it was like in that unit. Not saying working Homicide won’t give you a head full of horrors, but there’s something about sex crimes that adds a whole new level of fucked than murder.
A fair-skinned woman with short auburn hair strolls up to me wearing blue jeans and a black blouse along with brown tennis shoes. She’s the youngest among us, next to Jason. She’s 31 years old Ingrid transferred over from the burglary division. “What have you got for me there, Ingrid?” She smiles and snickers. “You know the drill. Unwrap it,” she says with a heavy Russian accent.
I rip off the wrapping paper and open the box. It’s a set of blue Russian Nesting Dolls. “In my country, the nesting doll symbolizes family. Which, in this case, we’re all one family here.” She kisses me on the cheek.
Sometimes in life, you get two families, the one you’re born with and the one that chooses you.
A warm dimpled smile slides across her face. “Devi, I believe I speak for us all when we say, ‘we love you like a sister.” They knew about my past in Miami, and what a liar and cheat I was with my husband. Yet they still embrace me as a family, which makes them okay in my book.
“Oh, Devi. I wanted to tell you those people you wanted interviews for, only one of them lives in Tampa, and he is in interview room five.” Jack points down the hall. “These bastards are hard to locate.”
I take the file from him. “I’m not surprised, considering most of these tree fuckers live off the grid. All the info we have on them is out of date.”
I open the file and examine his record.
Adam Cordell was charged with manslaughter when the worker fell back and hit his head on a steel pipe. The victim died after Cordell struck him.
Closing the folder, my eyes narrow. “This guy sounds like a fat waste of time, Jack.”
He throws his hands out to his side. “The guy has motive, but if MK is a religious nut like you said, then you’re possibly right.”
“I guess I’ll go see what I can get out of him. Even though it feels like a massive waste of time.”
I sit at my cluttered desk, which sets between several cubicles. It has a computer, and sticky notes left over from the Aztec Killer case I have yet to toss in the trash. A case I’m glad is over and done with. He was a butcher who would kidnap virgin girls and would perform sick Aztec sacrificial rituals on them and cut out their hearts and eat them. There is a novelty motivation poster I bought on the internet one night when I was drunk and bored that reads, don’t fuck it up.
Jason sits down in his desk next to me, sipping a cup of coffee and stuffing his face with a Danish. “Devi, you alright?”
I turn around in the chair. “Yes, Jason. I’m fine. It’s just dawning on me; we’re chasing our own asses.”
He lowers his brow. “What do you mean?”
I lean back in my chair. “This guy we’re looking for is not some radical tree hugger who is motivated by his need to avenge Mother Nature. He is a bible nut. After seeing that shack, I am sure Moonlight is not an environmentalist. He is a stone-cold hitman for god, or so he believes.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. The man they brought in is pretty much an environmental terrorist or was. The radical environmentalist is the logical angle here.”
“No, no, it’s not. The Moonlight Killer is motivated by religious beliefs. Mark my words, he’s going to go back to ganking random rich people again. Think about it. All the bible scripture we’ve seen at these crime scenes. Before you came along, this guy was leaving all kinds of bible scripture.” I groan in frustration as I reach into my desk, and sling the file on my desk. “Goddamn it. I thought I had this asshole pegged.”
I pull out a photograph of a naked middle-aged woman who was bound with barbwire and stabbed to death. “Take a look at this.” I slide the picture over to him. “Evelyn Warner was bound in barbwire and her neck sliced open. After that, the psycho carved Whore of Babylon across her chest. That’s why I’m starting to think you’re right.”
He crosses his legs. “Environmental terrorists leave messages too. Some are even religious.”
“Yes, they do, but it’s never bible verses. It’s always some shit about Mother
