The Case of the Lipstick Killer

The detective walked down the walkway and up onto the modest one-story house's porch and rang the doorbell. After 30 seconds, she knocked loudly on the door. There was a large oval window in the door with a lace curtain on the inside, obscuring the inside entryway's view.

Still no answer. Just out of instinct, Wheeler turned the doorknob to see if it was locked and was surprised when it wasn't, and the door opened with a squeaking sound. This door needs some WD-40, she thought to herself.

Wheeler slowly opened the door all the way and crept inside, her senses heightened, listening for any sound that might indicate the presence of anyone inside. The detective couldn't hear a sound. It was deathly silent.

She walked into the kitchen and found no one there. What she did find made a chill run down her spine and caused goosebumps on her arms like an allergic reaction to fearful anticipation. There were two wine glasses with the smallest amount of wine in each. One glass was resting on its side, the other standing upright. There was also a handful of what appeared to be Valium pills spilled on the counter next to an open plastic pill bottle.

"Oh, my God," said Wheeler out loud. "Please don't let this be another one."

Wheeler immediately made her way to the master bedroom, midway down the hallway leading from the kitchen. As she entered, she said, "Oh, shit." She found Melissa Stein, like the others, lying in the blood-stained sheets on her bed with a large butcher knife protruding from her chest. The killer had plunged the knife straight through her heart and had planted a lipstick kiss on her left cheek.

"Shit! I guess this rules Melissa out as a suspect in the lipstick murders," said Wheeler in exasperation.

This murder is number seven if we count Fresno. If we couldn't call this the work of a serial killer before, we certainly can now. Well, I'd better call it in.

After notifying OPD to send the coroner, the criminalist team, and more homicide detectives, Wheeler called D'Agosta on his cell phone to let him know that the Lipstick Killer had struck again. Oh, and that they could safely rule out Melissa Stein as their main person of interest.

While awaiting the police and Coroner's arrival, Wheeler looked around Melissa's house for potential clues to her homicide. As she was perusing the living room, she came across the same photo she saw at Gwen's apartment, showing Melissa and her sister, Camille, her daughter Gwen, and Gwen's two cousins, Janice and Henry.

Oh, there you are. I've seen you before.

Just before she turned her attention elsewhere, a light went on in her mind, and it dawned on her that she recognized one of the people in the photograph. "Sonofabitch" she yelled out loud.

The person in the picture that she recognized was Janice, Gwen's cousin. Goddammit. That's Nora from Nikki Fontaine's office. Why didn't I already know that? Wheeler immediately pulled her cell phone back out and called Detective D'Agosta.

"What's up, partner?" said D'Agosta when he saw who was calling him. "I'm just leaving the soup place where Gwen works. She didn't come to work today. No reason.

She just didn't show up."

"I need you to redirect, Marco. I just found out something astonishing. Gwen's cousin Janice, who lived in Fresno at the same time Gwen did, and then moved to Oakland shortly after Gwen relocated here, is fucking Nora that works at Nikki Fontaine's office."

"You've got to be shitting me. Are you serious?"

"Deadly. I think you should drop by Fontaine's office and have a little chat with Gwen's cousin Nora. Since Gwen's mom just got ruled out as our serial killer--or, sorry, The Lipstick Killer--that means we need to refocus our attention somewhere. I think sweet little Nora is the best place to start, don't you think?"

"You might be right. I'm not far from there right now. I'll talk with Nora and see if she provides anything we can use as proof against her. I'll let you know what I find out, Fran."

"Sounds good. While I'm waiting for the cavalry to show up, I'm going to see if I can find out where Gwen's cousin Henry lives. We need to talk to him also. Somebody in this family knows something, and I'm going to find out what it is if it kills me."

"Okay. Talk soon."

Wheeler kept looking around for any shred of evidence that could nudge her investigation in the right direction. Then she came across Melissa's purse.

Let's see if her cell phone is in here.

"Ah, here it is," she blurted out. "Oh, shit, it's pass-coded. That's no good. I need to get into this phone so that I can find Cousin Henry. I'll call Jessie at Nikki Fontaine's. She's a whiz with computers. Maybe she can crack this thing and get me the password."

Wheeler immediately got on the phone to my office. She was surprised when Jessie answered the phone, but she didn't have time to talk about anything else right now. Wheeler focused her attention like a laser on finding Henry.

"Hey, Jessie, this is Detective Wheeler. I need a favor from you, and I need it quickly. Can you help me out?"

"Sure. Whatever you need. What can I do?"

"I need to figure out what the passcode to Melissa Stein's cell phone is."

"Why would you need that?" asked Jessie. "Did you take the phone away from her?"

"No," exclaimed Wheeler. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Melissa is dead. The Lipstick Killer murdered her. I just found her in her home. I need to talk to Gwen's cousin Henry to see if he knows anything about any of these murders." "Wow," replied Jessie.

"Detective D'Agosta is on his way to your office to talk to Nora, who we just found out is Gwen's cousin Janice from Fresno. This is one jumbled mess, and one messed up family," said Wheeler.

"Jesus Christ," yelled Jessie. "Nora is Gwen's cousin Janice? The hits just keep on coming."

"What do you mean? What else have you found out?" asked Wheeler.

"I was just getting ready to call you. I just found out something you need to know."

"What's that, Jessie?"

"I found out that Henry works for a company called Bay Area Security Company." "Okay," said Wheeler.

"It turns out that Bay Area Security Company is the same company that installed the home security systems for Jackie and Brad Morrison, your Officer Alexia Arguello, Lani Kahue, and Leslie McMullin. But not for Melissa or Gwen. I don't know if that's connected, but that sure raises some red flags, doesn't it?" said Jessie.

"Shit! It sure does. Has Detective D'Agosta shown up at your office yet? I told him to talk to Nora to see if she can shed some light on this mess."

"Detective D'Agosta has already come and gone. Nora didn't come to work today. She's dealing with some problems with her family. She said it had something to do with an intervention. Now I'm worried about what it might be."

"I have a hunch she'll turn up sometime today. Anyway, any ideas on how we could get into Melissa's phone?" asked Wheeler.

"Let me think for a second. I got it. I got it. Knowing how close Melissa is to her daughter, Gwen, I think a good place to start would be Gwen's birthday. Hang on a second. I have it in my file here somewhere. Oh, here it is. Okay. Gwen was born on August 2, 1998. Try 8298. If that doesn't work, I'll have to do some further looking. But let's see if that might be it."

"Okay, Jessie. Hang on. Let me try that."

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed, Detective."

"It worked. That was it. You're incredible, Jessie. I'll talk to you later."

Detective Wheeler gained access to Melissa's phone, went directly to her contacts, and found Henry's landline phone number. Okay. I got you.

Wheeler called the OPD to talk to someone in their intelligence department and had them run Henry's phone number through the reverse directory to get his home address.

She found out that Henry lives at 3150 74th Avenue in East Oakland. That's about a half-hour drive from Melissa's house in Montclair. Wheeler again called her partner to let him know where she's headed.

"Hey, Wheeler. What's up?" asked D'Agosta when he answered her latest call.

"Things are moving quickly."

"I know. I just left Nikki Fontaine's. Nora didn't come into work today, and I'm heading to your location in Montclair," said D'Agosta.

"Change of plans. I need you to get to Henry's house ASAP. It turns out that he works for the security company that installed security systems in several of the victims' homes. He could be our guy, or maybe he's been providing information to Nora to get into our victims' houses, and she's our killer. One way or another, it's someone in this twisted family. We just have to figure out which one is our psycho killer."

"Well, shit," said D'Agosta. "My money's on Nora. No one's that perfect. What's the address?"

"His house is at 3150 74th Avenue."

"There's a good chance I'll beat you there," said D'Agosta. "I'll check the place out and see if Cousin Henry or little Nora are there. Who knows? Maybe the rest of the damn family is there, too. You know, maybe Nora and brother Henry are working as a team.

Now, that would be a new one--a brother and sister serial killer team."

"Nothing would surprise me at this point, partner. Okay. I'll see you there," responded Wheeler.

HENRY COLLINS' RESIDENCE

3150 74th Avenue, Oakland

April 6, 11:15 a.m.

As fate would have it, Detective D'Agosta arrived at Henry Collins' house ahead of his partner. Henry's house looked like a crack house. It was a two-story craftsman house that had seen better days--like maybe 40 years ago. And that's probably the last time it had seen a new coat of paint. It also had a below-ground basement.

D'Agosta cautiously walked down the walkway and up a set of creaky stairs, stopped at the door. He put his ear to the door and listened. He heard nothing. He turned the doorknob to see if someone had locked the door. To his surprise, the knob turned, and he pushed the door in and listened some more. Still no sound, no evidence that anyone was in the house.

"Henry?" said D'Agosta in a loud voice, but not too loud. The little voice inside his head was telling him to be careful. He learned over the years to never ignore that little voice; it's right too many times. He got no response. "Nora?" he said. No harm in trying, he thought to himself. He saw a broken lamp on the floor.

"Well, in my book, that's probable cause to continue inside," he whispered out loud.

The detective slowly made his way through the first floor. He found nothing worth noting outside of the broken lamp. D'Agosta then made his way up the stairs to the second floor. And not surprisingly, every one of the stairs creaked when he stepped on them. He felt like yelling at them to be quiet, but he knew that was a waste of time.

There were two more bedrooms upstairs, but they looked like no one had set foot in either of them in years. Henry must confine himself to the first floor, where there's one bedroom.

D'Agosta decided to go back down to the first floor and then venture down to the creepy basement. He slowly opened the door off the kitchen. There was a flight of stairs that went down to the dark basement. There was a barely perceptible ambient light coming from somewhere in the basement. It seemed to be coming from a light source off to the right.

He walked down the flight of creaking stairs that led to the basement's dirt floor. The air was damp and musty smelling. Cobwebs were everywhere.

"Goddamn these stairs," cursed D'Agosta as the creaking continued.

But it was too late. Someone hiding in the darkness was listening to the detective's every step and eagerly awaiting his arrival.

DETECTIVE WHEELER'S CAR

66TH AND EAST 14TH STREET, OAKLAND

Detective Wheeler was racing Code 3 to Henry Collins' house. She had a bad feeling something terrible was about to go down at that house. Melissa was dead, Nora was missing, Gwen never made it to work, and all the arrows were pointing to a family reunion at Henry's house.

Wheeler was puzzled as to why the killer or killers would take out Melissa Stein. They were all related. Maybe she found out who was doing the killing and was going to turn them in, and he, she or they decided to cancel her check before she could turn them in.

Wheeler was barely slowing down for red lights. She knew she needed to get to that house before it was too late. If she only knew how right she was.

HENRY COLLINS' RESIDENCE

3150 74th Avenue, Oakland

April 6, 11:25 a.m.

Detective Wheeler pulled up to Henry's house about the same time D'Agosta stepped off the last creaky step onto the dusty floor of the rodent-infested basement.

D'Agosta turned right and started walking towards the light on the far side of the basement. He still couldn't hear any sounds. As he approached the dimly lit area of the basement, he found a woman tied to a chair with a hood over her head. D'Agosta glanced around the basement to see if anyone else was lurking around. His heightened senses were causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. The darkness was not his friend, but he thought that it was safe enough to turn his attention to the woman bound to the chair.

Wheeler turned off her siren and lights a block before getting to Henry's house, but couldn't help but come to a screeching halt next to the dirt and dead lawn that was Henry's front yard. Wheeler jumped from her car, leaving it parked at a right angle to the sidewalk and hastened into the house through the open front door and called out for her partner but got no response. D'Agosta couldn't hear Wheeler calling for him from deep in the basement.

Detective D'Agosta leaned over and started to untie the ropes binding the woman to the chair. That's when he noticed that they weren't ropes; they were Zip Ties.

"Shit," he said out loud.

D'Agosta focused his attention on releasing the bound woman and getting her out of the house, and he had no clue that there was a shadowy figure slowly creeping up behind him.

The butt of a 9-millimeter pistol came crashing down on the top of the detective's head, which sent him crashing to the dirty floor in a daze of confusion and anger at being so careless.

Wheeler followed the same path as D'Agosta had followed and was just making her way back down the stairs from the second floor.

D'Agosta sat up on the floor and shook his head, trying to clear the foggy haze engulfing his brain. He was met with even more confusion when he looked up. Hovering above him was what appeared to be a man wearing a white dress, high heels, a blonde wig, and sloppily-applied red lipstick.

"Oh, shit," said D'Agosta as his mind seemed to subliminally put the last piece in the puzzle of The Lipstick Killer case.

"'Oh, shit' is right, asshole. Too bad you won't be around long enough to finish that sentence,'" said the man aiming the gun at the detective.

"Enjoy hell, whoever you are."

A loud gunshot rang out and struck the man wearing the dress and blonde wig in the head, killing him instantly. The man fell as if in slow motion and crashed to the dirty floor, causing a cloud of dust to explode into the air and temporarily blind Detective D'Agosta, still sitting on the floor.

Upon hearing the gunshot, Detective Wheeler ran down the stairs into the basement and over to her partner. He was still sitting on the floor, with the dead body of the man who was about to kill him lying next to him.

The woman bound to the chair wearing a hood was shaking back and forth and yelling, but she had duct tape covering her mouth under the black hood draped over her head, so all you could hear were muffled sounds.

Wheeler walked up to her and yanked the hood off of her head. It was Gwen, who was rightfully freaking out.

"Oh, my God," said Wheeler. "Let me get you out of this mess." Wheeler pulled a small pocket knife from her pocket and cut Gwen loose. "There you go, Gwen."

"Thanks, partner. You saved my life. If you hadn't shot this guy when you did, you'd be looking for a new partner," said Marco.

"What are you talking about?" asked Wheeler. "I didn't shoot him. I thought you did."

"I shot him. I had to," said the woman stepping from the shadows.

"Janice!" yelled Gwen. "Oh, my god. Where did you come from?"

"I had a terrible feeling, so I came here to make sure nothing bad was happening," replied Janice.

"Who's this?" said Wheeler, kneeling to pull the wig off of the body on the floor.

"Oh, no," said Gwen. "That's Henry."

"What have I done?" said Janice. "I just killed my brother!"

"I'm so sorry, Janice, but you had no choice," said Detective Wheeler. He was about to kill an innocent man. And I think you just killed The Lipstick Killer. We were all wrong about this."

Just then, Nikki and Jessie came running down the stairs to the basement. They were both worried about Nora, aka Janice, so Jessie tracked Nora's cell phone and got her location, and Nikki and her went to find Nora.

"Oh, my God," I said. "What the hell happened here?"

"It's a long story, Nikki," said Detective Wheeler. "Janice--I mean Nora just saved Detective D'Agosta's life, and probably Gwen's also, but she had to shoot her brother to do so."

"Oh, baby. Are you okay?" asked Jessie as she walked up to Nora and hugged her.

"I don't know," replied Nora. "I think I'm in shock."

"So do I call you Nora or Janice?" asked a confused Jessie.

"I'm not sure anymore, baby. We'll have to figure it out when this is over and all the shaking stops," replied Nora.

"Detective Wheeler, we're going to wait for you upstairs. We don't need to be here right now," I said. "Come on, ladies, let's get some fresh air," I continued, as Jessie, Nora, Gwen and I walked back up the creaky basement stairs and out to the front porch to breathe in some fresh, dust-free air.

Through hard work, dogged investigation, and several mistakes and wrong assumptions, Detectives Wheeler and D'Agosta, had finally solved the case of The Lipstick Killer--with a little help from me and my team of crime busters.

NIKKI FONTAINE INVESTIGATIONS

GRAND AVENUE, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

April 13, 9 a.m.

It had been a week since the Lipstick Killer case had been solved. Nora decided to remain Nora. Reverting to using Janice as her name brought back too many bad memories.

Everything that happened hadn't deterred Jessie from wanting to be with Nora. Max and I were still exploring ways to surprise each other. And Barton was still--well, Barton. Danny and Dooley were getting back into the swing of stealing back cars for the banks from deadbeat borrowers.

More and more cases were walking through the front door regularly, and the business was thriving. I was still on the lookout for another investigator. Things were looking up, and I could finally stop looking over my shoulder.

I decided that Max and I would take the rest of the week off and spend the next several days at a hotel on the ocean in San Simeon drinking champagne, enjoying fires in the fireplace provided in the room, and doing nothing but enjoying each other's company.

"Come on, Max. I have a surprise for you. Hey, everyone, we'll see you when we see you."

We walked out of the office holding hands, jumped into my roadster, and got the hell out of town.