The Tangerine Killer

  THE TANGERINE KILLER

  BY

  CLAIRE SVENDSEN

  Copyright © 2013 Claire Svendsen

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by CCR Book Cover Design http://www.ccrbookcoverdesign.com/

  FOR GRAN. WHO ALWAYS MADE US LAUGH.

  ONE

  Returning to Tangerine was a big mistake. No. Scratch that. It was a huge mistake. I knew it before I found the dead body of my childhood friend. That was just icing on the proverbial cake.

  I’d been in town for two days, talking to Lisa’s friends and digging around in her life. I didn’t find much. Seems some people like to hang on to a grudge. I hardly expected a tickertape parade at my homecoming, still the pittance I was being paid didn’t make up for all the doors being slammed in my face. Fifteen years ago I killed a cop. It was self-defense. What more did people want from me?

  Police cars crawled slowly into Grove Park. No lights or sirens. They weren’t in a hurry. I reported the body the minute I found it and had been waiting out in the hot Florida sun for over an hour. It had to be payback. They were probably pissed that now they’d have to do some actual work. The general consensus had been that Lisa ran away, just like she had before. No one in the Tangerine police department had been interested in looking for her.

  The first uniformed officer wandered over with some yellow crime scene tape in his hand. I picked at my black nail polish and tried not to look smug. After all it wasn’t nice to be glad someone was dead, even if it did mean you were right.

  “I told you she didn’t just run away,” I called out.

  “So where’s the body then?” he said.

  I pointed downstream. Even from where we stood in the parking area you could still make out the sodden lump that was once Lisa on the wet sand. The water lapped lazily at her bloated head. Flies rising and falling like a thin veil as the water chased them away.

  “You touch it?” he asked.

  “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

  He didn’t answer, probably because he thought I did look like an idiot.

  “Look. Do you want me to stick around or what?” I snapped.

  “Guess you better had.”

  I sat in my Jeep, longing for an iced tea or better yet a cold beer, while the officers milled about. Once they’d blocked the area off with tape, they didn’t seem to know what to do. They were just as incompetent now as they had been back when they assumed I was a cold blooded killer. I watched as one of them got his shoe sucked off in the wet sand. He hopped about on one foot and motioned for the others to help him as he almost fell onto the body. I stifled a laugh.

  “You think a dead body is funny?”

  I squinted up at whoever was talking to me, blinded by the angle of the sun.

  “What? No.”

  I held my hand up to block the light. The detective who stood there was annoyingly handsome and the smug grin on his face said he knew it.

  “You know, you have spinach in your teeth,” I said.

  I got out of the Jeep and pushed past him. Now he was the one with the sun in his eyes. See how he liked that.

  “I do?” he asked. “Do you have a mirror?”

  “Do I look like the kind of girl who carries a mirror?”

  My mascara and dusty eye shadow had been hastily slathered over whatever still clung to my face from yesterday. By now I probably looked like a hooker, or possibly a raccoon.

  “Better not answer that,” I said. “Sam Weber, though I’m sure you already knew that.”

  “Detective Olin.” He stuck out his hand.

  I shook it begrudgingly, gripping it harder than I normally would.

  “So what do you want?”

  “I’m sure you know the drill. After all, you are a big shot private investigator, aren’t you?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Rumor has it you only take on jobs that have big paychecks. Frank doesn’t have much money. How did he get you to come back and look for his wife?”

  He put his hands in his pockets. His belt buckle was made out of bullets. How tacky was that? Where did he think we were, Texas? But he was right about the money. I got the big paychecks because I took the jobs no one else would touch and I had plenty of battle scars to prove it. Plus I solved cases no one else had a hope in hell of figuring out. But he was also right about Frank. I was working for peanuts and put up with his alcoholic rants because I felt guilty about the way I left things with Lisa.

  “She used to be my friend,” I said.

  “The friend you hadn’t seen in fifteen years?”

  “Yes. So?”

  We stared at each other. I didn’t blink. There was no way this smug asshole was going to pull one over on me. I had done my job and I hadn’t broken any rules. Finally he squinted at me, then smiled.

  “All right. Fill out a statement. I’ll go get the forms.”

  “Great.”

  He turned to leave and I called after him.

  “Hey, you guys need to notify Frank. I’m not doing it. He’s seriously lost it over the last few days. I don’t want to be anywhere near him when he finally snaps.”

  Olin turned back and spread his arms wide.

  “I thought you liked danger.”

  “Yes but not crazy people danger. That’s a whole other ball game.”

  “Fine but you have to stick around until we determine cause of death.”

  “Why? You think it was murder?” I shouted.

  “What do you think?”

  I looked back at the body. It was exactly how I’d seen Lisa in my dream. Face down in the sand, the orange sundress pushed up around her thighs, the dream catcher tattoo on the back of her neck. Only the arrow was missing. In my dream it had been scratched in the sand, pointing away from the body and towards me. I’d had dreams like that before, used them to solve cases that no one else could. This one felt the same but damned if I was going to stick around to find out. Tangerine was the one place I should never have come back to. The dead cop wasn’t the only thing from my past that was buried here.

  “In this sleepy town?” I said. “No way.”

  TWO

  I spent two days hanging around town, waiting. Patience wasn't my strong suit. I drank too much, slept in late and played endless games of solitaire on my laptop. It came as no surprise that the motel didn’t have Wi-Fi. The only coffee shop in town did but every damn person who came in there gawked at me like I was a circus freak. Finally tired of all the stares, I decided to go back to the river.

  The road cut through the Florida backwoods like a knife. Straight, deserted and boring as hell to drive on. If you ran out of gas you’d be hiking for miles. I was driving on auto pilot when a white van appeared in the rear view mirror. Before I knew it, he was up my ass.

  “Just pass already.” I stuck my arm out the window to wave him by.

  I was doing five miles over the speed limit and well aware that teenagers used this road to street race. Cops knew it too and were known to lurk in the brush with speed guns and tickets, ready to pounce.

  The van didn’t pass but it did inch closer to my bumper. The jerk was going to get us both killed. I honked my horn and waved them by again. That gesture of kindness was rewarded with the sound of grinding me
tal. My Jeep lunged forward as the van rammed into it.

  What the hell? I stepped on the gas and the van fell away, then he was back. This time he hit me at full speed. My neck snapped forward. Adrenaline surged through my veins. The road went on for miles. No businesses, no homes, no help.

  I pushed the Jeep up to a hundred. The van fell back again. I scanned the road up ahead for a turnoff or dirt track, something to get me off this straightaway. There was nothing. The road was densely flanked with tall trees. I couldn’t have pulled off even if I wanted to.

  The van was back. He bumped me a few more times. Each thrust sending me forward and him back. My nerves settled a notch or two. This game wasn’t going to run me off the road. But bullets might. The first one whizzed past my ear and shattered the windscreen. I instinctively ducked. The second lodged in the passenger seat. I pushed the Jeep up to one twenty, praying the motor could take it.

  The van was gaining but slowly this time. Smoke poured out the back as it strained to catch up. I didn’t have time to think. My weapon was in the glove box. If they wanted a gun fight, I’d give them one. When I finally saw it bellowing up behind me like an enraged dragon, I slipped the Jeep into the other lane and let my foot off the gas. Unable to stop, the van barreled past and I eased in behind it. Now I was the one in control. See how the jackass liked that.

  I got off three rounds, shattering the back windows. The van fishtailed back and forth a few times, then swerved off down a dirt track I hadn’t seen. I didn’t follow. Hopefully I hit the bastard and he’d bleed out before he got to a hospital. I slowed to try and get the license plate as the van rattled away but the swirling dust made it impossible to see. All I got was an F. Lot of good that was going to do me. Orange swirled up into the air as the van vanished from sight. God damn it. I hit the steering wheel and shards of glass rattled onto the floor. Someone owed me a windshield.

  My nerves settled as I got to the river. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill me but usually I’d done something to piss them off. I was finished digging around in Tangerine. Waiting to go home, wanting to go home. No one had to run me off the road or use me for target practice to get me to leave.

  I parked my sad looking Jeep and wandered through the trees. There was a narrow wooden bridge that you could access from the parking area and use to cross to the other side of the river. I stood on it and watched the water as it rushed under my feet. It was soothing, in an angry sort of way.

  Over on the sandy bank the crime scene tape had gone but I could still make out the spot where Lisa’s body had come to rest. I ignored the bad feeling lingering in the pit of my stomach and leant over the edge of the railing. There were some pretty decent sized rocks down there and the water was deep. Lisa didn’t exactly have much to live for, stuck in a dead end town full of gossips and backstabbers, and married to a fall down drunk. Of course she committed suicide. Why wouldn’t she? The dream had to be a mistake.

  I jumped as the phone vibrated in my pocket. Guess my nerves were still a little raw after all. I didn’t recognize the number but it had better be Detective Olin. I couldn’t take Tangerine any longer than it could apparently take me.

  “Yes?”

  “Sam? It’s Detective Olin.”

  I crossed my fingers. “Please tell me I can go home, I’m losing my mind.”

  Silence. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to tell a cop I was going crazy after all.

  “Hello?” I said, wondering if we’d lost the connection.

  “Yes, you can leave,” he finally said. “The death has been ruled a suicide.”

  “Thank God.”

  He laughed. “If you’re that happy when a friend commits suicide exactly how ecstatic are you when someone you don’t like dies?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Do I?” he paused. “Well, you’re free to leave. But you might want to stick around for the funeral. You know, show you care?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I started to say. But my phone was slipping through my fingers. I fumbled with it and watched helplessly as it slid out of my hands and disappeared over the edge.

  “Shit.”

  I peered down into the water. My phone was gone, lost in the swells of the murky river. What was I going to do now? My whole life was in that phone. I guess it served me right for being so flippant about Lisa’s death. If I wanted to salvage any karma I had left, I was going to have to go to that funeral. Because, you know, there was nothing like being stuck in a room with a dead body and a bunch of people who hated you to redeem yourself. But what if the person who tried to run me off the road was there? Or even worse, my mother? I’d managed to avoid her since I’d been back and I was eager to get out before she decided to break our fifteen year silence and scream at me that I’d ruined her life. Oh, there was so much to look forward to.

  THREE

  I was late to the wake because I stopped to buy a new phone. By the time I arrived at the Sunset Palm Funeral Home the parking lot was full and I had to stick my Jeep round the back. People in Tangerine always liked a good funeral. Too bad there wasn’t going to be much to see. This would definitely be a closed casket affair.

  Inside it was standing room only and I was right about the place being filled with people who hated me. At least I couldn’t see my mother anywhere. Not yet anyway. I hung about in the back of the room, wondering how long I’d have to stay.

  “I thought you left town?”

  Harvey Lee Reynolds. Brother of the deceased and philandering asshole. Sadly, he’d had a crush on me since we were kids. Back then he was a bully, now he was just two hundred pounds of sweat and pout.

  “What‘s that supposed to mean?” I said.

  My hand instinctively brushed against the spot on my waist where my gun usually sat. I felt naked without it. It seemed respectful not to bring it to the wake, now it just felt foolish. Too bad. I would have thrust it into Harvey’s rolls of fat and told him to get the hell out of my way.

  “Well, you didn’t really do a very good job did you?” He pointed through the crowd to the coffin.

  “Really Harvey? She’d been dead for days by the time I found her. I’d say you guys dropped the ball on that one, don’t you think?”

  “Whatever. Come up to the front.”

  “No.”

  That was the last place I wanted to be. Besides, I might need to make a quick getaway if things got ugly.

  “Mom wants you up there. Her heart is already broken. Do you want to shatter the few remaining pieces she has left?”

  He pouted and I could have sworn I even saw his lip quiver a little. I had to give it to him, the guy was good. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand and forced a smile. If everyone made it out of the place alive, it was going to be a miracle.

  Harvey used brute force to herd me down to the front of the room where the grieving mother and her friends sat huddled together.

  “Stop it,” I mumbled.

  Harvey didn’t listen. One way or another he was going to serve me up on a platter to his mother. My car was parked by the emergency exit. If I kicked him in the groin, I could still make a run for it but it was too late. Faye had spotted me.

  “Darling,” she flung her arms out and hugged me.

  I was swallowed by the black gauze of her floating dress and a cloud of slightly stale perfume. As she pulled away I noticed she had rhinestones glued to the corner of her eyelids and feathers in her hair. I think she’d once been on Broadway, or maybe that was just the excuse she used to dress so flamboyantly. Poor Lisa. The casket may have been on display but Faye was the one thing in the room people couldn’t take their eyes off. Even in death her mother outshone her, albeit in a crazy person sort of way.

  “I’m so sorry Faye.”

  “It’s okay. I just don’t know why she would kill herself, that’s all.”

  She didn’t know why her daughter would kill herself? She was even more deluded than I remembered. Lisa had been st
uck living in the same house as Faye and Frank. Between the drunk husband I strongly suspected had been cheating on her and the crazy mother, no wonder the poor girl snapped. She’d never been that tough, even when we were kids.

  An angry voice rose over the quiet mumbling in the back of the room.

  “Get out of my way asshole.”

  It was Frank, pushing his way through the crowd at the door like an angry bull.

  Faye crossed her arms. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”

  “I’ll put a stop to this,” Harvey said.

  He stuck out his chest and stood up to deal with the situation but as he turned to look, his face paled.

  “He looks messed up,” he said.

  Poor Frank. I almost felt sorry for him. He was one of those guys who got by on pure luck and boyish good looks but both of those were in short supply tonight. Lank brown hair hung over his eyes and he was wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in four days ago. His unsteady sway and glazed look said he’d consumed far more alcohol than the half empty bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand. The guy was bombed.

  “Get rid of him,” Faye nudged Harvey.

  “What?” Harvey stammered, clearly intimidated by the man half his size.

  “Just do it.”

  He shook his head and took a step back behind Faye, as though she could somehow protect him. How pathetic.

  Frank reached the coffin and slumped over it. I felt for the cell phone in my pocket, toying with the idea of calling the cops. Instead my fingers closed around the switchblade I kept hidden. It wasn’t a gun but in a pinch it would do.

  Frank started to sob. Fat tears rolled down his face and plopped onto the lid of the coffin.

  “I told you not to come here,” Faye spat. “You’re not welcome.”

  I wasn’t surprised that she tried to ban him from the funeral. The one thing I had discovered over the course of my investigation was that Faye blamed Frank for everything that had gone wrong in her daughter’s life.