Chapter 24

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

When Mosby arrived at the 5^th District Station he was shown directly into Detective Jacoby’s office.

 

“Sit down, Mr. Ellis. You said on the phone you had information on a murder I’m investigating.”

 

“Yes Detective, I have reason to believe that the murder of Lilly Petulengro is connected to the body that was found in that parking lot.”

 

“You mean the blonde that was found at Tyson’s Galleria?”

 

“Yes. I think that Lilly knew something that certain people wouldn’t want known.”

 

“Hold on. You’re losing me. It’s been a really long day. Suppose you start at the beginning – and go slow. Start out by telling me how you know the deceased.”

 

“I went to Lilly a couple of years ago a couple of years ago for a tattoo. We talked. I liked her. When I went back for a second tattoo we talked some more. She told me a little about where she’d come from. Her family. I think she was lonely. Her husband was dead. She didn’t have any kids. She had lost her only child. Maybe she thought of me as a son. I kept going back for more tattoos just so I could talk to her.”

Jacoby looked unconvinced. “A sixty year old woman? Seems like a weird playmate for a young guy like you.”

 

“I spend all my time with fifth graders. I’m a school teacher,” he added when Jacoby raised his eyebrows. “It was a relief to have an adult conversation.”

 

“What makes you think that your friend’s death is connected to the body out in Virginia?”

 

“A couple of weeks ago I was at Lilly’s. She was finishing up a series of tattoos for me.” Mosby wasn’t quite ready to divulge to the detective that his torso and buttocks was festooned with a scene from Genesis. “A black Lincoln Navigator stopped in front of the shop. It was parked there for a while. It was still there when I left.”

 

“Is that unusual?”

 

“I called Lilly early Thursday morning after I saw the story about the body that they found out in Virginia. On the news they had shown a picture of a tattoo that she had on her shoulder.”

 

“I’m still not seeing where this is all going.”

 

It was a tattoo of a cherub. Just like the one Lilly had done for me that night. I had done the drawing of the cherub myself. I design all my own tattoos. That day after the murder in Virginia I asked Lilly is she has given that same tattoo to anyone else. She told me that a couple came in right after I left. They had been waiting out in the Navigator parked in front of her shop. Lilly told me they’d wanted matching tattoos. The woman saw the sketch of my cherub and wanted one like it.”

 

Jacoby was beginning to see where Ellis was going. “So you told your friend Lilly they’d found a dead woman with your tattoo on her shoulder.”

 

“That’s right. I asked her what the woman she had given the cherub to looked like. She said that she was pretty, young, blonde.”

 

“Even if the Lilly had done a tattoo for the victim – that still doesn’t mean the two murders are necessarily connected.” 

 

“You don’t understand, Detective! When I told Lilly that was the girl they found was the one that had come to her shop that night she told me something else. The man she was with. The one that got the matching tattoo. She recognized him.”

 

“I’m listening, Mr. Ellis.:

 

“That man was Senator Stuart Jaffe.”