The Highway Axeman – Chapter Five

NOT EDITED

Chapter Five

Monday: June 15, 2020

6:00 AM; DAVID QUINN’S APARTMENT, LIVING ROOM

Bo hadn’t slept a wink the night before. He couldn’t. The look on Jensen’s face in that damn alleyway had haunted him all night, no matter how hard he had tried to push it away. Every single time he closed his eyes, it had been there again, waiting for him. He was still rather certain that the man had been lying about something, but there had been far too much pain in his eyes for his murdered mother to be a lie.

“No rest for the wicked, huh?”

Bo lifted his head to meet David’s gaze. He offered a smile. “No, not in my experience.”

“Anything on your mind I can help with?” David asked.

“The man from last night. I-I need to know if he was telling the truth about his mother.”

David raised an eyebrow. “You mean the guy that’s been stalking you? You… want to know if he was being honest about the reason he’s stalking you?”

Bo held his silence for a moment, more so to pretend he’d thought about the statement and his answer for at least a second or two before nodding. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Okaaay, and why does it matter if he was telling the truth or not?”

“I couldn’t get him out of my head. Every single time I closed my eyes, I just saw his face, the pain in his eyes. I just keep hearing him say that once he’s dead, there will be no one left to care about her or her justice. If it was my mom, if I had to rely on someone else to give a shit about her enough to solve her case? I don’t know that I could live like that, David. I-if I can help, even just to show him that someone else cares, I think I have to.”

David sat down beside him on the couch. “Do you… think you’re ready for something like that?”

“No,” Bo admitted. “But I haven’t been ready for a case in a long time, David. You know that. I always still had to work them, ready or not. I haven’t been ready for a case since… Well, since before Dallas left, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” David whispered. “What do you need me to do?”

“Confirm there’s a case file. I’ve seen just about every cold case in the file room at one time or another. I don’t remember a Jensen. Redacted from any court precedings or media releases, sure, but it should be in the files if it’s real.”

“I don’t know where I’d start, Bo.”

“He said it’d been almost twenty years, so we must be coming up on the anniversary. So… I don’t know, summer of 2000?”

“We don’t even know how his mother was supposedly killed.”

“No, but we know it’s a cold case, and we know she left a three-year-old son behind. It’s not much, but it’s something, and something’s—”

“Always better than nothing,” David said with a nod. “I know. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Thank you. I… I know you’re busy with your own actual work and—”

“It’s the least I can do, Bo. Really. I’m happy to help, no matter how.”

Bo twisted the rubber band around his wrist. “Even so, thank you.”

“Not a problem at all, Bo, I promise.” David stood up from the couch and gave Bo’s shoulder a tight squeeze. “I’m gonna get coffee started, grab a shower. I know you won’t, but if you decided you wanted to avoid the hotel a while longer, you’re welcome to stay here today. Mi casa es su casa and all that.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll… I’ll let you know either way.”

“Works for me.”

8:07 AM; LOS ANGELES, THE ATLANTIS HOTEL, PARKING LOT

Jensen had spent all night in the hotel parking lot, just in case Bo turned up there again. He had to at some point. He hadn’t taken any of his things with him when he’d left with Quinn, and a quick call to the hotel requesting he be put through to Bo’s room had confirmed he hadn’t sneaked in to check himself out. He’d be back. Even if he no longer ‘did’ the forensics thing, there was no way in hell he’d leave his camera behind forever. His other personal belongings? Probably. But the camera? Not in a million years. Jensen was certain of that.

Around 8:30, Jensen couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at one corner of his mouth. Bo climbed out of a car—not David’s, probably a rideshare—and headed up to the hotel. About halfway through the parking lot, his eyes met Jensen’s through the windshield. Bo put two fingers up two his eyes and then pointed them at Jensen. Jensen managed to offer a little wave, which earned him a roll of Bo’s eyes and a shake of his head before he continued up to the hotel.

Bo could watch him too, that was fine. It seemed only fair, really.

Bo came back out about twenty minutes later, his satchel and camera bag on his shoulder. Jensen raised a brow. Still not enough of a collection of things to be moving out of the hotel. He’d seen him switch locations enough to know he had two luggage bags with him. The satchel was pretty standard. He just about always took that with him to the diner he liked. The camera was new. That always stayed safely tucked away in the hotel room.

So what the hell kind of stupid shit was the ‘totally don’t do that anymore’ lab geek getting himself into today?

9:30 AM; LOS ANGELES, SLICE OF LIFE DINER

Bo lifted his head as Lyle slid into the seat across from him at the table. “Good morning.”

“They found another body yesterday,” Lyle said.

Bo nodded. “I heard.” He pushed a coffee cup over to Lyle, who wrapped his hands around it like his life depended on it not going anywhere. “We don’t know—”

“Did you see her?”

“The… the dead woman?” Bo asked. Lyle nodded. “No, I’d have to go into the station for that, and I—”

“Don’t do that anymore. Yeah, I’ve heard.”

Bo let out a breath. “Travis, the working the case, generally doesn’t upload any of his photos to the server. I usually did that once I got tired of waiting for him to do it. If he’d simply do his job, I’d just access the photos here.”

“But you can’t.”

“Correct.”

“So what can we do?”

“You could go to the station and give the police any identifying information they may be able to use to determine if the body belongs to one of your friends,” Bo suggested.

“The cops don’t give a shit. We’ve been over this.”

“David Quinn is working this case. Believe me, he gives a shit. They have no leads, Lyle. If they did, and if those leads led to you in any way, shape, or form, they would have already been in touch to speak with you about Rosa, to ask you to identify the new woman. They have nothing.”

“You’ve talked to this David guy?”

“No, I listened to Travis’s voice notes on the autopsy. They’re automatically uploaded as soon as he stops recording. It’s the only thing I can easily access.”

Lyle looked down as he took a small sip of his coffee. “What… what did the autopsy say?”

“From what I read in your file on Rosa, much of the same. Whoever the most recent victim is, it would be incredibly shocking if they weren’t both killed by the same person,” Bo said. He cleared his throat, took a sip of his own coffee. “Your first friend who went missing. Sarah, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Your notes indicate she has an apartment. Did you ever… go?”

“Not personally. One of the girls did, and no one answered the door. She been a couple times, I think.”

“Does Sarah live with anyone? Another one of the girls, a partner, a friend? Anything like that?”

“I don’t think so. Sarah and me weren’t super close. I knew of her, met her a couple times, but she worked the other end of town, so we didn’t, y’know, cross paths a ton. But we pretty much all still knew about it after she went missing, especially after Rosa disappeared too. Why?”

“Well, I was looking at some records last night, and the apartment is still in Sarah’s name. She’s been missing for, what, almost a year now? If she’s dead and not paying rent, the apartment should have been turned over to someone else by now. If she isn’t paying it, someone else is.”

“Can you find out who?”

“Without a search warrant? Unlikely. But since I have the address… I thought we could maybe pay the place a little visit, see what we can see.”

“What, like breaking and entering?”

Bo offered a little shrug. “I’d argue I’ve done worse.”

A little smile tugged at one corner of Lyle’s mouth. “Deal. When?”

“I was thinking after breakfast. You look like you’d benefit from a bite or two?” Bo suggested.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’d be… that’d be okay.”

Bo pushed the menu over to Lyle. “My treat. And then we’ll head out.”

“Thank you.”

“Partners, remember? Partners make sure their other half is well-fueled for a break-in.”

Lyle snorted. “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind, Mister Austen.”

“Bo is fine.”

“Bo,” Lyle corrected. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

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