Nipped And Tucked ,Part 1

At face value this looked like any old run of the mill murder...a case one of the other detectives might have caught....but from the beginning there was something evil, sinister and different about this one....I was glad my elite unit of homicide detectives were on it...Still I felt uneasy...

We sat in Sissy's office....a couple of uniformed policemen had fetched us breakfast orders and coffee from Sam Mother's diner...

The detectives had been working on this case for close to two days now...I hated cases like this...I preferred cases that got closed fast...like in the first 48 hours...

Lt.Sissy Van Buren sat at her desks while her detectives ate....she liked brainstorming and sharing information....

"Okay guys.. what do we have so far?" she asked...

My wife, Detective Carlotta Rodriguez Wallace spoke first-

''The dead woman's name is Freda Harlan...She's from Miami,Florida and she moved up here in June...She has a cousin that has been living here for years...She lives in West Philly." she said.

The primary, Detective James "Jimmy"Barlow spoke next...

"She's got a long rap sheet...Numerous arrests in Miami for prostitution...Carlotta and I went out and visited the cousin in West Philly yesterday...She told us that she hadn't seen Freda in a few weeks, but that Freda came up here...told her she had a job ..a straight job and a boyfriend...." he said.

"She said she never met the boyfriend...but said his name was Vick...Vick Peters!..We did a little checking and found a Vick Peters...He's from Miami, he has a sheet too...
Armed Robbery, Burglary, Safe cracking...No Known Philadelphia address...

"This job must have paid well....The cousin said that she never talked about it...but that she stayed with her for a few weeks ,paid her for food and board and left when her place was ready...and here is the kicker....Guess where she was living at the time of her death?" said Jimmy Looking at me...

"Well where? and why are you looking at me?" I said.

Carlotta looked at me strangely.....
''Papi...she was living in your old loft...Apparently she moved in right after we moved out and settled into our house.!!!!"she said.

"WHAT??" I said...

"I talked to Chris Thompson ,Chess and Donald Smooth myself Keith...They own your old loft...They said that they only met her once...That a guy calling himself....and get this...Claude Hopper paid her morgtage and paid for her up to this month...." said Sissy...

''We pulled a video up of him in their office from their camera...and guess who it is?", It's the so called plains clothes cop from the other night who found the body." said Hop.

"And while we are on that...Duke and I went over to Cantrell's precinct yesterday...There is no Claude Hopper amongst his plain clothes cops...."said Tyriq...

"There is no Claude Hopper on the Philadelphia Police force period....I checked..." said Duke...

"But there is a Claude Hopper...and guess where he's from?? Miami...Two Philly addresses..both fake!  Hop and I checked them out...He's a drifter, has a few arrests for loitering ....a few misdemeanors....but we did pull a photo and get some prints...That's the fake cop...He probably put the body there and stood around laughing at us.."said Sirena..

"Why would he use his real name and be so obvious?" I asked....

"I don't know the answer to that guys...but I did some digging and made a few calls....Claude Hopper was in Houston a few years ago and was questioned in a pair of murders of hookers that have the same m.o as your murder last night...He was released for lack of evidence....He was then questioned in Dallas a year later in another pair of unsolved hooker murders......He has loitering arrests in both cities...Next ,Claude Hopper was in San-Antonio and get this...Same thing...a couple of loitering arrests ,followed by questioning in two unsolved murders....Same M.O.. He next shows up in New Orleans,Louisiana and it's the same thing,loitering arrests followed by two unsolved murders..." said FBI Special Agent Sharon Hopkins,who had just entered the room...

"There is more.." said my wife Carlotta... "Look at these police photos of Claude Hopper taken in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans....Even the Miami one and then compare them to the photo lifted from Chris and Chess's office....See anything different?" she asked...

"He's had some work done on him....Some plastic surgery.....and recently...." said Jimmy....

"Hey guys" said Dr. Hazel Hunter-Baylor , who had just entered the room....I was right about those silicone breasts....They did have serial numbers....They can be traced to Dr.Natalie Tucker of Tucker and Associates Plastic Surgery. She's got an office downtown....It's only been there since May...She's a native Philadelphian...Family is loaded...From the mainline...But guess where the good doctor has been for the past year??  In Miami ,Florida." she said.

II-

Hours later, I stood in Sissy's office just staring at the window.......Sissy looked at me...

''Something wrong Keith?" she asked.

"Yeah...something is dead wrong...You have a victim ,who last year was nothing more than a Miami prostitute....Yet in May, she moves all the way up here and can afford to have plastic surgery and move into a condo...a condo that I used to live in...And who has a mysterious job...A job nobody can substantiate...No W4, No social security check that reveals where a paycheck was being generated from...It doesn't fit....Then you have a guy,who for all intents and purposes could be a serial killing drifter....Who all of a sudden is up here and handing over a big check to Chris and Chess for this hooker to live in my old loft...
Doesn't play Sissy...Where were they getting the money?, Who was financing these two and why?" I asked.

Jimmy interrupted us....
''We traced the funds from the check to a bank account in the Cayman Islands counselor and guess who's account it is?"said Jimmy...

"Who's?" I asked...

"Claude Hopper" he said.

''Claude Hopper?  No way....This guy has been living on the street, on the fringes for years....No way he has that kind of money..." I said.

"It's obviously a dummy account....He probably doesn't even know the account was in his name."  said my wife Carlotta...

''What do you mean was in his name?" said Sissy....

"The Account is closed Boss Lady...One last payment was made for Freda Harlan's's loft and then the account was closed and the funds transferred to another account in Belize...Belonging to Frasier Holdings Ltd...Another dummy company...Jimmy , Hop and I looked into Frazier Holdings  Ltd. and all of it's funds have been liquidated...It's now closed."said Carlotta...

"Of course it is closed..Like they knew she wouldn't be needing that loft after this month, because she'd be dead. This isn't your typical serial killing case...This is something else...It's got a money trail...A Money trail that leads to nowhere....Who would go to all this trouble to set up and kill a workin girl...and why? Am I the only one that sees something very,very scary about all of this?" I asked.

"Yeah...Well, We are going to have to put that on hold gang...We got another murder!!....A patrolman just called it in...a body was found hanging in an aircraft hanger at Northeast Airport from fishing rod wire...Sound  familliar  guys?"asked Tyriq!


III-

Northeast Airport is our city's second airport....Most people arrive at Philadelphia International Airport...
Situated on 1,150 acres in the northeast part of the City of Philadelphia, PNE is Pennsylvania's sixth busiest airport, providing "on-call" U.S. Customs, Immigrations and United States Department of Agriculture services to corporate international travel.

It is surrounded by low density and light development to the east and west and to the northeast. by a high density residential area. The Airport averages 215-based aircraft, dominated by single engine aircraft, plus twins, jets, turboprops and helicopters.

Here in an abandoned aircraft hanger near the edge was the hanging body of a man in his forties...He was hanging by highly reinforced fishing rod wire and he had been strangled.... This time , the patrolman that reported the crime was a real cop...Someone we knew...The clincher was...He told us that he and his partner had gotten a call from a woman saying she had found the body....When they arrived...The woman was nowhere to be found!!!

Duke was at the scene with several uniformed policemen and CSI people as well as crime scene photographers...

"What'cha got Duke?" asked Sissy...as Tyriq, Carlotta ,Jimmy, Sirena,Hop ,Hazel  Sharon  and I converged on the scene...

"His wallet says his name is Vick Peters....and he's from Miami,Florida....This is also your other uniformed cop ,who vanished mysteriously with the ever elusive Mr. Claude Hopper the other night at Jimmy's crime scene."said Duke ,who pulled out his Ipad mini.....

''So these two guys probably murdered that girl and staged the scene and then brazenly stayed there and watched us....Laughed in our faces." I said , smacking my fist in the palm of my hands....From the side, I could a see a concerned look on my wife, Carlotta's face.

"I did a quick check...This guy has a rap sheet as long as he is tall...Burglary...Armed Robbery, Jewel Heists....Safe cracking....This guy was heavy duty...Had just been paroled from the Florida State Prison in
April and vanished after only one meeting with his P.O." said Duke..

''And now he's up here in Philadelphia? Or rather ,he was up here." said Sissy...

"Yeah ...He was strangled...From the marks on his neck...with a garrotte!" said Duke..

''Very good baby....You've been hanging around me so long that you have practically learned my craft...That is a very good observation."said Hazel ,who now, along with Carlotta and Sirena had on latex gloves and was observing the body, which we had a uniformed officer cut down...

Duke nearly blushed and smiled gingerly....


''Well ahhhh,what can I say?" he said...

This brought a smile from Sissy,Jimmy,Carlotta and Sirena...

Sharon kneeled down and looked at his face....She looked at Duke's Ipad mini again...

''He's an FBI most wanted fugitive" she said and pulled up his FBI Wanted poster.....She also pulled up a few police mug shots of him..."

''Look at him....Look at his wanted poster, look at his drivers license photo, look at these mug shots from a few years ago....Now look at him......His nose and his chin are different....He's had some work done on him..." she said.

"That's both victims, who have had plastic surgery....I think it's time we had a talk with Dr. Natalie Tucker."
said Carlotta.

''We don't know that she did his work.." said Jimmy.

"No...but we do know that she did our first victim, Freda and it's a start.....Go pick her up. We've got a dead hooker and a dead career criminal...They weren't just up here for the hell of it...They were up here for a reason...and whatever that reason was...Their services were no longer needed and they were terminated." said Sissy...

I had a badd feeling in the pit of my stomach about this case.....that this was way more than just two arbitrary murders....When I had these feelings...I was seldom wrong..

( DEFINITELY TO BE CONTINUED)