Page 73 of Tito

Tito

Armed with a hand-drawn map depicting the layout of Mel’s home, Goose and I stepped into the kitchen. A congealed pool of blood surrounded what appeared to be the very dead mid-forty’s white male. A few feet from the body a grilled cheese sandwich sat beside the apparent murder weapon.

A cast-iron skillet.

Face-down in his own blood and dressed in a pair of gray slacks and a powder-blue button-down shirt, the corpse wore a brown leather cap toe oxford on one foot. A red sock covered the other.

“Are those candy bars on that sock?” Goose asked.

I gawked at the bloody walls. “Looks like it.”

“Where’s the other shoe?”

I looked at him like he was nuts. “That’s the least of our worries.” I waved my hand toward the kitchen cabinets. Blood splatters were peppered on every cabinet within close proximity of the stove. “There’s blood everywhere.”

He glanced around. “It’s a fucking mess, that’s for sure.”

I felt the well-dressed man’s neck for a pulse. Feeling his clammy skin caused what little hope I held in reserve to vanish.

“This fucker’ dead,” I said. “Has been for a while.”

Goose pushed the heel of his boot against the shoulder of the deceased, causing the body to roll over. Upon seeing the man’s face, I swallowed heavily.

His entire forehead was distorted, indented from what I suspected were multiple impact wounds from the heavy skillet.

Goose put his hands on his hips and stared down at the corpse. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

“She smacked the fuck out of this guy,” I said.

“I’m not talking about his head,” Goose said, nodding toward the man’s blood-soaked shirt. “That’s Rick McNown.”

“Rick McNown.”

I spun around. “You know him?”

“Everybody—well, anyone who watches TV—knows him. He’s the evening news anchor for channel five, and he hosts that Sunday evening show about inner city crime, Exposed.”

“Really?”

He looked at McNown and then at me. “No doubt about it. Weird that it’s him.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s married. Has a couple of kids. He’s big in the community.” He waved his hand toward the deceased newscaster. “He hosts that show about shit like this happening. Shows footage of cops arresting the jerks that prey on women. I don’t know. Just strange thinking that he came here and held a knife to her throat. It’s just odd. Didn’t peg him for a weirdo.”

“Most of them don’t have a neon sign over their heads.”

“Suppose not.”

A quick search of the body produced several hundred dollars in cash, keys to a Mercedes-Benz, positive identification, and a cheap throw-away flip phone.

Goose tossed me the phone. “Looks like a burner.” He handed me the wallet and keys. “You said he rode here with her?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Where’d they come from?”

“Some bar. Bart’s Lounge.”