A Body To Die For Page 22

  “I thought you two were fired because you were gay,” Savannah said.

  “Well, let’s just say that we broke more rules than just ‘Don’t ask; don’t tell,’” Ryan replied. “They had a hard time deciding which ones to fire us for. They had quite a selection.”

  Dirk pulled up in front of the largest building, and Savannah parked right beside him. They all climbed out of their cars and looked around.

  The dirt nearby showed the tire tracks of numerous vehicles. In fact, it was obvious that some cars or trucks had even been parked on large portions of the weeded areas as the vegetation had been flattened. Even more litter lay strewn about here than on the road.

  “Looks like they’ve thrown some pretty big shindigs around here,” Savannah said with a feeling of dread.

  “Yeah,” Dirk answered. “I found Julio in a pool hall on the east end of town, and he said he’d heard of some cockfighting going on in this area. Of course, to hear him tell it, he hasn’t even been close to a KFC since he’s been out on parole.”

  “And speaking of…” Savannah said, as she opened the door of a nearby outbuilding and looked inside. Her heart sank when she saw row upon row of tiny wooden doors. One of the inside walls was covered with what looked like stacks of tiny outhouses, three high and six across. Eighteen separate enclosures—one for each of the roosters who was awaiting his turn to fight to the death for the amusement, entertainment, and financial profit of the spectators.

  The broken cement floor of the building was littered with chicken feathers, excrement, feed, and, here and there, drops of dried blood.

  “It’s a holding area,” she told them, as they joined her to look inside. “How much do you want to bet the arena is in there?” She pointed to the largest building.

  “Rather ironic really,” John said. “Years ago, this place was used for killing birds. Now it is again.”

  “Yes, but slaughtering for food is one thing,” Dirk replied. “This crap is something else.”

  “As bad as this is for the chickens, it breeds other crimes, too,” Savannah said. “Huge amounts of money are gambled and lost. And anywhere there’s a lot of money, there are guns. Homicides aren’t that uncommon in these circles.”

  “And then you’ve got organized crime,” Ryan said as he walked over, opened one of the small cages, and looked inside. “Anything that rakes in a lot of dough is a magnet for those guys.”

  “But blood sports are prominent in many cultures around the world,” John said. “In the U.K., we have our own foxhunting. Spain its bullfights.”

  “And cockfighting’s always been part of the U.S. culture, too.” Dirk turned away from the outbuilding and headed toward the main structure. The rest of them followed. “George Washington and Abe Lincoln participated,” he said, “…or so Julio informed me when I was arresting him last time.”

  “Yeah, well, slavery and child labor were legal back then, too,” Savannah added. “Just because it’s an old cultural tradition doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one.”

  When they reached the door to the main building, they found it secured with a heavy padlock. Dirk fiddled with it a few minutes, then started looking around for something to pry it off with.

  “Here, let me try,” Savannah said.

  He gave her an indignant look. “Oh, right. I can’t get it off, but you…”

  She reached into her purse, took out a lock pick, and ten seconds later, had the lock open. “And that,” she said, “is how a professional does it.”

  “A professional what?” Ryan teased. “Burglar?”

  She raised her nose in the air. “I’ll have you know I have never burgled anything. Breaking and entering, yes, but Granny Reid raised me to be a lady.”

  As she pushed past Dirk to be the first to enter, he said, “And breaking into people’s property is okay with her?”

  “What Gran doesn’t know…” she said, “…won’t get me whooped.”

  There were no windows and no lights on, so at first, they had no idea of the enormity of the room. It wasn’t until Dirk had felt around for a switch on the wall and thrown it that they realized the long, gigantic building was mostly one room.

  And the evidence of both its past and its present was all too apparent.

  Hanging from the high ceiling was a conveyor belt with many small, ominous-looking metal frames suspended from it. Savannah didn’t have to use a lot of imagination to picture a chicken hanging from each of those frames as it circled the room, going through one stage after the other of the slaughtering process.

  Along the conveyor line there were several huge vats. At least one of them appeared to be connected to some electrical equipment.

  Savannah didn’t want to think a lot about that, either.

  At the far end of the room were a set of large doors, and she assumed that was where trucks could load and unload their cargo. Near that end was also another walled-off area with a particularly heavy metal door.

  But it wasn’t the slaughterhouse equipment that bothered her most. As Dirk had said, killing for the sake of producing meat was one thing. What she saw in the center of the room had nothing to do with providing fried chicken for the traditional American family’s picnic.

  “Look at that,” Ryan said. “That has to be a cockfighting arena.”

  “Yeah,” Dirk replied. “They call it a ‘pit.’”

  He was pointing to a large circle in the center of the room that was bordered by a short, mesh fence. Around the pit was a ring of cheap plastic chairs, and behind those chairs, on a foot-high riser, was yet another circle of chairs.

  “Stadium seating,” she said dryly. “How very civilized.”

  Together, they walked to the arena, then each went their separate way and looked around.

  Dirk stepped over the wire fence and studied the pit itself. Ryan and John investigated some nearby square enclosures that were also fenced off with wire mesh.

  On one side of the room, to the right and behind the pit, was a snack bar. Savannah walked over that way and scanned the list of goodies that could be purchased. She was only mildly surprised to see that, along with nacho chips, hot dogs, sodas and beer, they were selling chicken strips.

  There was no real kitchen, per se, but several big ice chests for the beer and soda, and a couple of large microwaves seemed to do the trick.

  Dirk called out from the pit, “There are a lot of red feathers here that look like the one on Jardin’s tire.”

  “Over here, too,” Ryan told him, as he squatted down and looked at the floor of the other pen.

  “Maybe if we can get some of these to the Bureau,” John said, “we can find out what breed of rooster it is. If it’s strictly a gaming breed and not a run-of-the-mill domestic chicken, that would narrow down your evidence a bit.”

  “Yeah, that would help.”

  Dirk left the pit and walked toward the rear of the room, where Savannah joined him. They headed toward the large doors at the end of the room, but before they reached them, they both caught a whiff of something horrible, something putrid.

  “Damn,” Dirk said, putting his hand over his mouth and nose. “Where the hell is that coming from?”

  Savannah’s heart fell. She had smelled that terrible stench far too many times not to know what it was.

  “Decomp,” she said, trying not to breathe. There was something about the stink of decaying flesh that went straight to the belly and induced instant nausea. Savannah had seen things and heard things over the years that had troubled her. But it was the smell of decomposing bodies that haunted her.

  They walked around for a few moments, trying to find the source.

  When Savannah realized it was coming from an industrial-sized metal trash can with a lid, she froze.

  “Oh, no.” She thought of the missing redheaded boy in the picture. “Don’t let it be him,” she whispered. “Don’t let it be…”

  One look at Dirk told her that he was thinking the same thing. He reached into hi
s pocket, took out a latex glove, and slipped it on one hand.

  Normally, Savannah wanted to be in the thick of things, the first to see and do. But as Dirk stepped up to the can and gingerly lifted off the lid, she hung back, reluctant to see yet another sight that would scar her soul forever.

  The kids. She just couldn’t handle it when it was the kids.

  He leaned over and glanced inside. Then slammed the lid back onto the can. He looked like he was about to barf.

  “Roosters,” he said. “Dead roosters. Apparently, they toss the losers in here and forget about them.”

  “Hope they were dead when they got pitched in there,” she said.

  “Not always, by a long shot, I’ve heard.”

  Savannah sighed. “At least it’s not…”

  “Yeah.”

  Ryan and John were still in the pen. “Hey,” Ryan called out. “You ought to see these grisly things. Razors that they tie onto the chicken’s feet. Artificial spurs.”

  “I nicked myself just touching one of the things,” John said, wiping his hand with a handkerchief.

  “Be careful,” Savannah told him. “You’ll get an infection from that crap. I’ve got a first-aid kit in my trunk.”

  “It’s okay, love,” John replied. “But I’ll not be handling anything like that around here again. I’m behind on my tetanus shots.”

  “Anything in that can you were looking in?” Ryan asked.

  “No,” Savannah said. “Nothing important.”

  Remembering how Julio had defended his favorite sport, Savannah recalled his argument that champion cocks were often fed better than the human families who raised them. “Treated like kings!” he had argued.

  Not once they lose, she thought. Then they’re garbage.

  Happy to leave the trash can and its foul contents behind, Savannah walked over to join Dirk by the large doors at the end of the room.

  “This has to be the loading and unloading area,” he said. “Swing those doors open and you could get a semi-trailer truck in here.”

  “Or a Jaguar?”

  She knelt on the ground, took out her penlight and scanned it back and forth across the floor. “Take a look at this. Do you see what I see?”

  Kneeling beside her, he put his head down near the floor and nodded. “Yeah, those look like tire tracks in the dust there.”

  “Do you figure the CSU could lift those?”

  “If we can see them, chances are they can lift them. Wouldn’t it be something if they match the Jaguar?”

  Ryan and John had joined them in the rear of the building.

  “This would be a great place to hide a car,” Ryan said.

  Dirk nodded. “Just what we were thinking. If you wanted to keep the body and a vehicle under wraps for a while before dumping it somewhere, this would be the perfect place.”

  They all turned toward the heavy metal door to the left of them.

  “Processing houses have to have cooling rooms, right?” Savannah said. “You have to chill the meat before you ship it.”

  “Some have flash freezers,” John said.

  Dirk was already at the door. He jerked the thick handle and the door creaked as it opened.

  “It’s not cool in here,” he said, stepping inside and flipping on a light. “But look at those shelves. It’s got to be where they chilled the meat.”

  Savannah spotted a thermostat on the wall. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s a cooling unit, but it’s turned off.”

  “Why waste electricity?” Ryan said. “Your man Pinky is probably a guy who watches his profit margin.”

  Seeing yet another smaller door on the far wall of the cooling unit, Savannah walked over to it and opened it. Instantly, she was hit by a blast of frigid air. “Bingo,” she said. “Freezer, big-time. And it’s on.”

  She found the light switch for that room, too, but she used a tissue to open it, so she wouldn’t disturb any prints. Something told her they had entered an area that the crime scene techs would need to process.

  By the light of one dim overhead bulb, she could see shelves with at least twenty plastic bags of ice—the same sort she bought at the liquor store when she was having a party that was sure to tax her own meager ice cube trays.

  “Well, now we know where they store the ice for the sodas and ice chests at these little soirees,” she said.

  “Can I use your light for a minute?” Dirk asked her.

  She handed it to him. Then she, John, and Ryan watched and shivered as Dirk ran the light over first one shelf and then the other.

  “Hey, lady and gentlemen, look what we have here!” he said, excited.

  They gathered close, and Ryan and John shone their own lights at the spot he was indicating.

  “Okay,” Savannah said. “It looks like blood. But in a place like this, blood’s as plentiful as feathers.”

  Dirk grinned. “Yeah, but I’ve never seen a chicken with short, straight blond hair, have you?”

  “It’s got hair in it?”

  “Right there in that one big, dark spot.”

  He stepped back so that they could move closer. And when she leaned into the shelf and squinted, there they were—several short blond hairs, glued to the shelf by the dried blood.

  “That looks a lot like Jardin’s hair,” she said. “The lab will be able to tell for sure, but I’d bet money on it.”

  “I think they killed your lad somewhere on this property,” John said, “and then stowed his car in there and his body in here.”

  “Until they were ready to let the world know he was dead,” Ryan added.

  “So why the wait?” Savannah asked. “What did those days buy them?”

  “I think I’ll go ask Pinky,” Dirk said. “And this time I’m going to ‘ask’ him really, really hard.”

  Chapter 20

  Whether it was the city jail, county lockup, or one of the state penitentiaries, every time Savannah set foot in an incarceration facility, she was struck by the sheer power of the law.

  Even though she, personally, had been responsible for many arrests and subsequent convictions over the years, the fact that society could take a person’s freedom from them and lock them behind bars continued to awe her.

  Keeping human beings in cages was a necessary evil, but an evil, nevertheless.

  Surrounded by steel bars and cement, their faces strangely blank and eyes empty, the inmates wandered about listlessly—ghosts in orange jumpsuits.

  Sometimes, when they saw her, their faces would light up momentarily, the sight of a pretty woman sparking something in their souls. And usually the way they looked at her was touchingly respectful. Not so much lascivious, as one might expect, but adoring and with a longing of the spirit, rather than the flesh.

  She wondered if she reminded them of the women they loved on the outside: wives, girlfriends, sisters, and friends.

  But when Baldovino Pinky Moretti walked into the small interrogation room with its four plastic chairs and its one scarred table, and its drab, unadorned walls, he scarcely gave her any look at all. He hadn’t been inside long enough to need a woman, physically or spiritually.

  Pinky just wanted out.

  “You again,” he said when he saw Dirk sitting at the table next to Savannah. “They said somebody was here to talk to me about my case. Like I told you before, it’s a bunch of bullshit, me supposedly attacking that cop.”

  “It probably is,” Dirk replied. “But that’s not the case I’m here to talk about. Have a seat.”

  Savannah looked him over as he plopped his considerable body onto the chair across from them. He was a large man, well over six feet and must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. Most of it wasn’t muscle.

  The hair on his head had been shaved, but was beginning to grow out. So he had a blond stubble, reminiscent of a boot camp recruit.

  But his most obvious feature, without a doubt, was the enormous pinkish-red birthmark that covered most of the right side of his face. The port wine stain stret
ched from his forehead, over his eye and down to his neck.

  She thought of all the teasing and harassment the young Pinky would have endured with such an unusual appearance. Not to mention a name to underscore his uniqueness. It couldn’t have been an easy childhood.

  Of course, that was no excuse for murder, she reminded herself.

  “I didn’t kill that guy either,” Pinky said, chewing on his thumbnail, an activity that looked particularly ridiculous since he was handcuffed and had to lift both hands to his face to accomplish it. “That DA’s got nothing on me and he knows it.”

  “Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t.” Dirk leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “But I’m not here to talk to you about him. I still want to find out what happened to Bill Jardin.”

  Pinky snorted and spat out a nail fragment. “That gambling degenerate scumbag. I told you before, I don’t know anything about him…except that he owed me money.”

  “Gee, for what?” Savannah asked. “Did you redecorate his house? Tailor his tuxedo?”

  Pinky glared at her for a moment, then turned to Dirk. “Who’s this bitch?”

  Dirk chuckled. “A good friend of mine. You’d better watch what you call her, ’cause she’s got a mean karate chop, and I’m pretty good with a left hook myself.”

  The two men had a brief stare down, and Savannah noted with satisfaction that it was Pinky who broke eye contact first.

  “Let’s get down to business here,” Dirk said. “We just went for a little drive out in the country.”

  “Had a hankering for some clean farm living,” Savannah added.

  “Yeah,” Dirk said to her, “my buddy Pinky here, he knows all about farming. He owns that one we just visited out there in the hills, just off Sulphur Creek Road. He’s a chicken man.”

  “Not chickens,” Pink said, his pale gray eyes narrowing. “If you’ve been out to my place, you know what I’m about. Cocks.”

  Savannah snickered and said to Dirk, “It’s kinda pitiful, really, what a big kick he gets out of saying that. Kinda like a twelve-year-old who just learned himself a new dirty word.”

  Dirk laughed, then quickly sobered and leaned across the table, getting in Pinky’s face. “So, why did you kill Jardin?”