8. Unicorn Heads

EIGHT

Unicorn Heads

The next morning, Rus sat shotgun next to Moran in his cruiser as they drove to Melanie Iverson’s house.

“Got official approval this morning to stick with the case,” Rus told the sheriff.

“Good news,” Moran replied, relief underlying his tone.

“And I know my guys have been over it, but I’ll want to get into Brittanie’s apartment sometime today.”

“We’ll do that next,” Moran replied. “It’s on the way to where Dakota works.”

“Great,” Rus muttered.

Moran drove.

Rus took in the landscape wondering if he’d ever get bored of fir and spruce.

He then decided he wouldn’t.

“And here’s where Brittanie grew up, feast your eyes,” Moran said as he turned them into a drive.

Outside of the natural beauty that surrounded it, it was far from a feast.

The yard was scrub. He’d say the house needed a paint job, but it didn’t. It didn’t even need two weeks of handyman services.

It needed to be condemned.

Moran parked. They got out.

As they walked up to the house, Rus had to curb his desire to phone animal welfare to report the emaciated pit bull chained to a pole cemented in the ground. The dog had an overturned water bowl and no shelter in sight. Rus then had to concentrate on not falling through the spongy boards of a deck that had once been a pretty sweet front porch.

Moran knocked while Rus was careful of their combined weight distribution on the slats.

Moran knocked again.

He was about to knock a third time when the door was pulled open, and there she was behind a dilapidated screen door.

Melanie Iverson.

Jesus Christ.

She might have three days of makeup on her face. It appeared she just painted over the last, even if some of it had made it to places it wasn’t supposed to be. Her hair was a rat’s nest, dyed a brash version of Brittanie’s natural color, with half inch white-gray roots. Her cheeks were sunken. Her skin was sallow. She was overly thin. The lines around her lips betrayed she was a lifetime smoker, even before the smell of it hit him.

And she was visibly in a very bad mood.

“You tell her fuckwit of a father someone offed her?” was her greeting.

Two seconds in her presence, he knew exactly what Lucinda was talking about.

“We’ve been unable to locate Mr. Iverson,” Moran replied.

She opened her mouth and both he and Moran leaned back at the smell that emanated from it as she—no other way to describe it—cackled.

Once she was done doing that, she said, “I’ll bet.”

“I’d like to introduce you to Special Agent Zachariah Lazarus,” Moran said.

She squinted his way like she was looking through smoke, which was either habit, or she was too vain, or poor, to get glasses.

“Special Agent? Like, FBI?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Rus said.

“Ma’am, huh,” she grunted and returned her attention to Moran. “So she finally made it to the big time. FBI is on her case. Or can’t you deal with some little slut getting murdered in a motel room?”

Annnnnnnnnd…

Rus was done, mostly because he knew this was a waste of time.

Moran, however, was feeling stubborn.

“Can we talk to you for a few minutes?”

“No,” she denied. “And you can tell them reporters to fuck off too.”

At least some good news, she wasn’t interested in talking to the media.

Moran had released a name that morning and the fact she was found dead in a motel room. Dead, not murdered, and they were waiting for a coroner’s report to know more.

Still, the media got the jump on them.

“It’d really help if we could have a few minutes of your time,” Moran pushed.

“Listen, she had to be making some bank up there at,”—she leaned back and swayed—“high and mighty Lucinda Bonner’s joint. Her mom asks for some cash to help her out of a squeeze, what’s she say? Don’t bother trying to figure it out, I’ll tell you. ‘Go fuck yourself.’ That’s what she said. So you don’t have to think hard on what that means. We weren’t close. At first, I was shocked. My kid, murdered? Goddamn. Then I remembered she was a bitch, a whore and a tightwad. So I got over it.”

Yup.

Totally got what Lucinda said about this woman.

Even so, they were there, so Rus gave it a go. “Are you saying you haven’t had any contact with Brittanie in a while?”

“Whoa, you’re a sharp one,” she jibed. “No wonder you’re in the big leagues.”

“We’re trying to establish—”

She cut him off. “No, I haven’t talked to her, it’s been probably four, five months. No, I don’t know who might wanna off her. I didn’t like her much and I’m her mom so, real sorry I couldn’t narrow down that field,” she said sarcastically. “Now, are we done?”

They weren’t.

“Your daughter has passed. Once the autopsy is conducted, we’ll need to know what funeral home you want her taken to,” Rus told her.

“Say what?”

“She needs to be laid to rest,” he pointed out. “It’s a sorry business, I know. And expensive, but—”

“I gotta pay for that shit?”

She was incredulous.

He began to feel nauseous.

“If someone goes unclaimed, the state handles it,” Moran put in. “Or sometimes good Samaritan citizens will—”

Melanie cut him off.

“I don’t got no money to pay for no funeral. Someone wants to pitch in, that’d be cool. Never understood why people went overboard with that shit. The person it’s for can’t enjoy it.”

That was all they needed.

Now, for their last matter of business.

“Do you feed your dog?” he asked her.

“What?”

“Do you feed your dog?” he repeated.

She leaned forward, but he didn’t know why, because she didn’t do it far enough to see the side yard where the dog was chained. Still, she looked that direction.

She came back to him.

“Not my dog. My boy dumped it on me.”

“Do you feed it?”

“He gave me a bag of food, I put some out for him.”

“When was the last time you did that?”

“Yesterday.”

No, now he was done.

“That’s a lie,” he stated coldly.

She squinted at him again.

Moran jumped in. “At this juncture, you should know, abusing an animal is a criminal offense.”

That shook her. “It’s not my animal.”

“It’s on your property,” Moran noted.

She was more horrified about this than her daughter’s murder or the possibility of having to pay for her funeral.

“You’re saying I can get in trouble for my son’s stupid dog?”

“Are you saying your son has abandoned that dog and you need to surrender it to the proper authorities so it can be cared for?” Moran asked.

She stared at him a beat and then said, “Take it. Dakota can get another one if he wants a fucking dog. You want its food?”

Fifteen minutes later, they’d realized the dog didn’t have the energy, or temperament, to give them trouble. Rus had filled its water bowl from a spigot on the side of the house so they could at least hydrate the poor pup. They got him unchained, and Rus led the dog to the cruiser and helped it into the back while Moran went to the porch to nab the bag of food that had spilled all over the slats because she’d tossed it out.

They then drove not to Brittanie’s apartment, but to Moran’s vet.

* * *

“She was neat,”he murmured, moving through her apartment.

“Yeah,” Moran agreed, doing the same.

It wasn’t unexpected with what he’d learned about her.

On the one hand, she lived life, had friends, hooked up with guys, some married, stole boyfriends, wasn’t great with money, which would indicate some levels of either busyness, immaturity or irresponsibility that might lead to not taking care of her home.

On the other hand, Lucinda would never let her babysit if she was a total mess, she was loyal, she’d dicked around and nearly lost her job but then toed the line to keep it, Keyleigh had been undone by her loss and Lucinda was hiding that she, too, was deeply affected by it, which would indicate Brittanie had her shit together…or was trying to.

This was why it was important to look at where a victim lived, to learn more about her.

Her apartment showed which way that swung.

He could see the money she spent here. She cared about décor. She cared about quality. He couldn’t say anything was top of the line, but nothing was cheap.

But she took care of what she had.

No dishes left in the sink. Toss pillows on the couch carefully fluffed and arranged. Fresh vacuum marks on the rug.

She also liked Keyleigh, and what looked to be Keyleigh’s boyfriend, Declan. They had good times together if the framed pictures told the tale. And she had fun backstage at what had to be the burlesque. She also had friends there. Lots of bright smiles. Lots of horsing around. She cared about her friends, she surrounded herself with them even when they weren’t around.

And Madden, Lucinda’s daughter, was adorable. There was no mistaking the parentage of the dark-haired, maybe six, seven-year-old girl with a missing front tooth who was hugging Brittanie and giving a peace sign to whoever took the photo.

Big sister, little sister.

Undeniable.

Rus moved from the photos to the bedroom.

There was a little mess there. She didn’t bother putting away clothes she took off, but she didn’t let them sit forever and pile others on.

The last thing she wore before she dressed to go to the motel was on the floor in front of the closet.

Jeans, a sweater, a pink bra, socks with little unicorn heads on them, and high heel booties.

He’d seen the pictures of her home, McGill had brought them to his suite last night.

But being there…

Smelling hints of her perfume mingled with whatever was wafting off those wood reeds women set in scented oil, he got insight into the Brittanie Iverson who left the hovel she grew up in and got in money trouble to give herself better than what she’d had.

Not only that, it meant something to her.

She’d earned it.

It mattered.

That boulder he was carrying got heavier.

They both took their time in her space. They could find no letters, journals, notes, or anything that could give them deeper insight into Brittanie’s life or relationships, just as the first team had come up empty on these things.

They were ready to leave at the same time.

Moran started the cruiser, but he didn’t put it in gear.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Yeah,” Rus agreed.

“She had unicorns on her socks.”

Rus turned to Moran. “Suck it up, man. We got work to do.”

Moran did what he was told, audibly through his nose.

“Let’s hit the brother,” Rus said.

Moran put the cruiser in gear.

* * *

“I don’t knowwhere he is. I don’t care where he is,” the manager of the local big-box home improvement store told him. “I’m just glad he’s no longer here.”

“Was he let go?” Rus asked.

“Well, yeah. After half the time he doesn’t show for his shifts, and then he gets caught loading three chainsaws he didn’t buy in the trunk of his car in broad daylight, like working here is a free ride to a storewide salad bar, he was let go,” the manager replied.

“When was this?”

“We’ve had three weeks and two days Dakota-free, and you’d be right about how bad it was that I’m still counting that shit.”

“Why didn’t you call me on the chainsaws, Rob?” Moran asked on a sigh.

“Because this kid is bad news, Harry,” Rob answered. “I don’t need him pissed at me even if I don’t want him stealing from me. I don’t want to put up with him showing sometimes, not showing others. Having to ride his ass when he does show. Having to keep an eye on him, or have my assistant manager keep an eye on him, so we don’t have to deal with a sexual harassment complaint. I mean, the chicks that work here, they can take care of themselves. But we all got our limits, you know what I’m sayin’? And corporate way frowns on that shit. And since I know these women, I frown on it a whole lot more.”

“Yeah, Rob. I know what you’re saying,” Moran affirmed.

“His customer service was a nightmare,” Rob carried on. “So I put him on stock. He’s on break out front, hanging on the patio furniture eating a taco, and a female customer walking in, he calls her fat. While wearing a goddamn store smock. I have to tell you, I was thrilled he tried to steal those chainsaws. It gave me clearcut reason even he couldn’t mess with to let him go. I tried with the fat thing, but he raised a ruckus that, shit you not, had me checking all the cameras I got on my house.”

“He threatened you?” Moran asked.

“He’s bad news, Harry,” Rob repeated. “You know the Iversons. Only good one of the lot was the girl, and now…” He shook his head, looking sad.

“Did you know Brittanie?” Rus asked.

Rob shook his head again. “No. Seen her around. I’m married but I’m still a man. Girl that pretty, you notice. Not that way for me, though. I’m not a skeeve. She near-on could be my daughter. She came in, usually with her friend, buying the girl shit we got. Pots and plants and shelves and stuff.”

“You hear anything about her? From Dakota? Or gossip?” Rus asked.

More head shaking. “I wish. I wish I could lead you right to whoever hurt her. I know Dakota real well, but not in that way. He didn’t share about his family. He came to work, gave me a migraine, and left. That was Dakota.”

“Do you know if he had a girlfriend? Who he hung around with?” Rus kept at him.

“Nope,” Rob answered. “Though, I would be floored any woman would have anything to do with that pervy asshole. And he wasn’t about making friends with his workmates, so if he had any outside of work, that’d surprise the shit out of me too.”

Nothing.

All morning, except unicorn heads that drained all of the shoring up his girl Sabrina gave him, they got nothing.

Moran ended it. “We’ll stop taking your time. But thank you for talking to us.”

“I hear anything, Harry, you know I’ll call.”

“Appreciated.”

“Good luck to you,” he said, his gaze taking in both of them. “I mean it.”

Rob loped off, and Rus and Moran moved to the cruiser.

Once they were in, he asked Moran, “You got an address on Dakota?”

“Yeah, his mother’s house.”

Dead end.

Though, he suspected that pit bull had not been regularly fed for three weeks.

So Dakota loses his job, dumps his dog on his mother and skips town?

Moran started the cruiser up. “What about the dad?”

“We’re working it. Nothing so far.”

“Do you want me to punt that to McGill?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

Rus pulled out his phone.

“It’s slow going pinpointing those men and finding time to chat, but Dickerson says he’s going to have a short list of possibles by this afternoon,” Moran pointed out.

“Right. So how are we feeling about what we just heard?”

“We’re feeling like the brother was a piece of shit, and he could have wanted money and thought his sister was his cash cow, like the mother did, and got pissed she didn’t pony up,” Moran started. “But it doesn’t sound like he’s smart enough to try to put us off the scent by copycatting a serial killer’s MO to that degree. And I’ll need to buy a year’s worth of mints to deal with the epic puke I’ll need to unleash if he could do that to his sister.”

“Yeah, that’s where we are,” Rus muttered. “You want in on the staff interviews?”

“Absolutely.”

With that answer, once he texted McGill, he pulled up Lucinda’s name on his texts.

He’d gotten her number before he left.

Now, he had to touch base to ask her chef to make another sandwich.