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- Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
It’s taken some time, but Detective Kate Morgan’s various relationships are gelling at work—and even at home. Until Simon starts screaming in the middle of the night. Worried and not sure she’s up for this, Kate distances herself from him. When a tortured female body shows up, Simon’s visions are of no help, until he describes one specific injury, … the same injury on Kate’s latest case.
A case getting weirder as more is uncovered. A similar tortured death happened more than a decade ago, where the killer was caught and served time. As a suspect he looks good for this current case because he’s now out and back in society. Except he has a solid alibi …
This isn’t the only victim though, and, as the Vancouver PD Homicide Unit digs deeper, Kate’s team finds several more cases—all with connections to the same suspect. But Kate’s still not convinced.
Too much more is going on, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of this, before someone else dies a painful death …
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Books in This Series
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Excerpt from Simon Says… Run
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
Books in This Series
The Kate Morgan Series
Simon Says… Hide, Book 1
Simon Says… Jump, Book 2
Simon Says… Ride, Book 3
Simon Says… Scream, Book 4
Simon Says… Run, Book 5
About This Book
Introducing a new thriller series that keeps you guessing and on your toes through every twist and unexpected turn….
USA Today Best-Selling Author Dale Mayer does it again in this mind-blowing thriller series.
The unlikely team of Detective Kate Morgan and Simon St. Laurant, an unwilling psychic, marries all the unpredictable and passionate elements of Mayer’s work that readers have come to love and crave.
It’s taken some time, but Detective Kate Morgan’s various relationships are gelling at work—and even at home. Until Simon starts screaming in the middle of the night. Worried and not sure she’s up for this, Kate distances herself from him. When a tortured female body shows up, Simon’s visions are of no help, until he describes one specific injury, … the same injury on Kate’s latest case.
A case getting weirder as more is uncovered. A similar tortured death happened more than a decade ago, where the killer was caught and served time. As a suspect he looks good for this current case because he’s now out and back in society. Except he has a solid alibi …
This isn’t the only victim though, and, as the Vancouver PD Homicide Unit digs deeper, Kate’s team finds several more cases—all with connections to the same suspect. But Kate’s still not convinced.
Too much more is going on, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of this, before someone else dies a painful death …
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Chapter 1
First Sunday of September, Wee Morning Hours
Ascream from hell woke up Simon. He bolted from the bed and spun around in a panic. In the dark and nude, he tripped over his clothing on the floor, as he raced for the window. He didn’t know where that scream had come from, but—
“Jesus Christ, what’s the matter?”
He stopped, turned, and slowly reoriented himself.
Kate sat up in the bed and stared at him. “Simon? What’s the matter?”
“An unholy scream.” He held up his hands, so she could see them trembling.
“From where?” she asked, sliding out from under the covers. “The hallway? Your neighbor?”
She quickly pulled on her panties and jeans, then a top over her bare chest, as she walked to the front door. She stepped out into the hallway, coming back in again.
He stared at her. “I think”—he took a deep breath—“I think it was inside my head.”
She groaned. “Not another one.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Hey, Kate. This isn’t my doing. Remember that.”
“Hey, Simon. This isn’t what we wanted either. Remember that.”
“I know.” He nodded. “And it’s been a long time.”
“It has, at least a couple weeks.” And, with that, she gave him an eye roll.
“I know. Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she noted, “but it would be good if you could explain a little more.”
“There’s no explaining,” he murmured. “This is just insanity.”
“I get it,” she agreed. “I really do.”
“Good, because this is just too much.”
“You don’t know where or when or what or who?”
“No.” His expression was grim. “Just the most horrific scream.”
“A woman?” Kate asked, and he nodded. “In pain or fear?”
He looked at her, frowned. “Pain.”
“I get it. Somebody being tortured.” She sighed heavily.
He slowly nodded. “I think so.” He paused. “I wish not, but I think so.”
She nodded. “Oh, great. Here we go again.”
Chapter 2
Sunday Early Morning
The Vancouver showers just wouldn’t quit as Kate stood over the remains in front of her. Puddles had formed on the sidewalk and down along the back of the alley. The rain poured down on the woman’s body, tossed atop the full contents of a dumpster, left open. As for the victim’s cause of death, Kate couldn’t be sure just yet. She saw so many bruises, so many injuries, so much blood.
One thing was for sure though; her vocal cords and throat area had been slashed. The coroner would determine if the vocal cords themselves were actually cut. Kate didn’t really want to get close enough to take a better look. But, in spite of herself, she knew she had to.
As she tilted the woman’s head slightly to the side and up, Kate confirmed that her throat had, indeed, been cut. Swearing slightly to herself, she stepped back, muttering, “Torture is one thing. This is something else again.”
At her side, Rodney looked at her. “What did you say?”
She shrugged. “Some torture is obvious”—she pointed at the dead body—“but this seems to be a step above.”
“Is there a step above?” he asked cynically. “It looks just like murder to me.”
“It does, but then why cut the vocal cords?”
He looked at the woman’s bloody throat and shrugged. “If it’s her vocal cords, it was probably part of the throat slashing that killed her.”
Kate frowned as she studied the body. “I don’t know that we can put a cause of death to it yet.”
He snorted. “I get that we have to wait for the report,” he noted, “but her throat has definitely been slashed.”
She nodded. “Yeah, and both wrists are broken. Both ankles are broken, and you can see bone on the back of that calf, where some of the muscle has been stripped back.”
He looked, then turned back to her and frowned. “But again, none of those would be cause of death.”
“No.” She sighed. “I guess I’m just hoping that the asshole who did this had her so drugged that she didn’t know.”
Rodney swallowed. “You’re thinking all that was done while she was alive?”
Kate nodded. “Yes, I do. But again, we’ll have to wait to hear it from the coroner.” Just then his vehicle drove up. She turned and nodded as Dr. Smidge got out. “He’ll be happy with this.”
“He’s never happy with us,” Rodney quipped with a half smirk. “But we’re just doing our jobs.”
“He’s not even upset with us,” she admitted. “We’re just the messengers.”
Smidge walked toward her, a glare in his eyes.
She nodded and gave him a bright smile. “Lovely day, isn’t it, Doc?”
His eyebrows shot up, even as the rain poured over him. “I didn’t bring a hat or an umbrella,” he announced.
“Won’t matter,” she said. “You won’t do much here anyway.”
He continued to glare at her, stepped up, and looked down at the woman inside the bin.
“God damn it,” he muttered. “We’ll need to go through all that garbage too.”
She nodded. “Absolutely. Forensics is on their way.”
“Interesting.” He shook his head. “As if she were the last thing tossed in.”
“And no attempt to cover her up either,” Kate murmured.
He nodded at that. “Was the lid open?”
She nodded. “It was open. Body was found by a homeless man.” Kate turned to look around the corner, where the man should still be sitting. He was, thankfully, but he was tucking into a big bottle of some golden liquid at a pretty fast rate. Probably to haze out the scenes in his mind. It would be her job to pull those scenes back up front and center again, so he could tell her anything he might be hanging on to. “Shit. He’s the one over there, drinking up,” she murmured.
The coroner looked at him, nodded. “I would be too, if I were him.”
She smiled. “Well, I’d like a coffee myself, and the dang coffee shops aren’t even open yet.”
“The street vendors aren’t here either,” he grumbled. He bent down, took a look at the body, without actually touching her, then pulled out gloves and started doing an exam. She opened her mouth, when he flat-out stated, “Don’t even ask.”
She snapped her mouth shut. “How do you always know?”
“Because you guys are all the same. It’s the first thing out of your mouths every time. Cause of death, time of death, all of that.” He snorted. “As if I’ve had a chance to even figure any of it out.”
“Well, we were thinking cause of death was the slashed throat,” Rodney suggested.
“He was,” she clarified.
At that, Smidge turned and stared at her. “What’s your vote?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like very much about this one at all, … so I won’t hazard a guess.”
His eyebrows popped up. “What? You won’t go for the obvious?”
She shook her head. “No. The obvious in this case doesn’t work for me.”
“Explain,” he barked.
“She has been too badly tortured,” she detailed. “And I’m thinking those are severed vocal cords.”
He looked at her in approval. “You’re right. It cut her vocal cords. And this is a cut to her throat”—he pointed—“but I’m not sure it’s what killed her. It’s not very deep.”
She nodded. “I was thinking he might have been almost killing her and bringing her back, almost killing her and bringing her back,” she suggested. “And cutting her vocal cords meant nobody would hear her. He could torture her for as long as he wanted to.”
At her side, Rodney muttered under his breath, “Jesus Christ. I didn’t even think along that line. Who the hell would?” He turned and frowned at Kate, dumbfounded.
She shrugged. “It’s a big city. It’s dense, and who has a space private enough for a woman to scream—like she would have from the pain,” she said quietly. “The severed vocal cords are a given.”
“So what do you think killed her?” asked Smidge, as he continued to examine the body.
“Well, I’m really hoping,” she added quietly, “a shitload of drugs are in her system.”
“There probably are. I just don’t know what and how much yet.” Smidge stood. “You’ll get more when I get more.”
She nodded quietly.
“Do you ever think of going into this field?”
“No.” Her headshake was adamant. “I’m doing what I do now, and that’s about as far as I can go.”
“Hey”—he shrugged—“you’re doing the part I don’t do. We need all of it.”
With one last glance at the body and the dumpster and the mess all around, she turned and nodded. “We need everybody on board for this one.” Kate wrapped her arms around her chest. “It feels ugly.”
“That’s because it is ugly,” Smidge agreed, giving her a look. He motioned at two guys, who lifted the body from the dumpster and placed it on the plastic laid out for that purpose. He added, “No clothing and no ID, nothing to identify her.”
“Any tattoos?” she asked quietly.
He looked at the dead woman again. “No. Nothing I’m seeing at the moment anyway. But then the body’s still a mess.”
With the corpse in front of them, the gruesomeness of what had been done to her was even more apparent. One breast appeared to have been cut off, and chunks of flesh were missing from her thigh and her pubis.
Kate shook her head. “I really don’t like the missing pieces.”
“In what way?” Rodney asked, his tone snarky. “Just think about it though. It might give us something to go on.”
She shook her head, frowning. “I mean, that’s possible, but why those pieces? Why there? Was he just experimenting? Was he curious? What the hell,” she said in disgust. “Wouldn’t it be nice if people would consider a human body as sacred and something to be honored instead of desecrated?”
“We’re living in the wrong times for that,” the coroner argued. He stood again, barking orders to his team. He walked toward her. “I don’t need to tell you to catch this asshole, right?”
“No, you don’t need to tell me,” she repeated quietly. “It’s at the top of my priority list.”
“Damn good thing,” he noted. “But it’s not your only case, is it?”
She shook her head. “That would be way too simple to say that and to work each case in that way.” She sighed. “We did just close a couple though. So, with any luck, we can get started on this one, while it’s hot.”
“You need to,” he agreed. “I know we’ve had budget cuts. There are always budget cuts, but we need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
At that, Rodney turned and looked at Smidge. “What do you mean?”
He faced Rodney, his mouth firmed into a straight line. “Whoever did this had fun. How long will it be before he decides that he needs to get that same fix again?”
“It won’t be long,” Kate guessed, quietly shoving her hands into her pockets. “It won’t be long at all.”
And, with that, she spun and headed over to talk to the drunk. Unfortunately, as she got to him, his head bobbed against his knees, and he had passed out in a stupor. She groaned, reached down, shook him awake, but all she got was mumbles.
“Whoa, whoa. Whaa … t do you … you want?”
But he wasn’t conscious enough to talk with her about this. She motioned to one of the police officers, standing off to the side. “Can you take him down to the drunk tank?” she asked. “He’s the one who found the body, so we’ll need to talk to him when he’s sobered up.”
Then she joined Rodney, still standing here, staring at the crime scene. “Forensics will be here for a while. Do you want to help go through the dumpster?”
“Hell no, I don’t want to,” he replied. “Chances are they won’t find anything anyway.”
“No, but we can’t take that chance,” she added quietly.
Just then the Forensics team arrived, and she was ushered to one side.
“There goes our chance anyway,” she muttered. “You know how territorial they can be.”
“Which is nice,” Rodney noted, “because, honest to God, we don’t want to be in their faces, and we don’t want them in ours.”
“Never quite works so nice and clean as that though, does it?” She gave him a half smile.
He shook his head. “If this is the only case, we do need to canvass everybody around here.”
“I know. I was thinking of that,” she noted. “This is mostly a business district, and it’ll be dark in the evenings, but a group of homeless people should be up and down this area all the time.” Kate frowned as she reoriented herself. “Maybe if we check out this alley, we might find somebody who saw something.”
“Anybody who was here is long gone,” Rodney stated. “You know that. It’s the law of the land out here. Self-preservation means, Get the hell out before the cops come.”
“Unfortunately you’re right about that,” she agreed, “but it doesn’t help when it comes to getting witness information. What about cameras?” she asked, turning to look.
“There’ll be cameras on the main street,” Rodney noted, “but not a whole lot when it comes to these alleyways though.”
“Still, the main street will give us something.” She walked to the corner and took a look. “An all-night coffee shop is up at the corner.” She pointed. “Looks a little bit on the seedy side.”
“Did you hear what you just said? An all-night coffee shop in this part of town?” He shook his head. “This is Hastings Street. I’m surprised anything is all-night here.”
“Unless it’s rented by the hour,” she suggested.
“Only if they have somebody around to rent to,” he muttered. “I’m not exactly sure anybody around here will be doing the tango in a coffee shop.”
“Well, they probably are. They just won’t admit to it.”
He laughed. “True enough.”
Crossing the street, they headed into the coffee shop. As it was, one woman, looking very tired and old, sat on a stool behind the counter. The coffee shop had only a couple tables, and it wasn’t any bigger than a postage stamp. Kate pulled out her badge, identified herself, and asked if the woman had any cameras outside the shop.
The woman glanced at Kate and shook her head. “Nope. No cameras around here,” she replied. “They did that for a while, monitoring the whole works. But, after so many break-ins, they couldn’t get coverage anymore from insurance, and the equipment was so cheap that you couldn’t tell who it was anyway. The owner figures it’s cheaper to replace a couple tables and chairs, and they even bought these solid cabinets, instead of the glass ones, for when the break-ins happen. We post signs that we don’t have cash after midnight, so nothing’s in the till anyway.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot better that way.”
“I guess,” Kate offered. “We’ve got a body in the dumpster across the road.”
The woman snorted. “Seriously? Again?”
At that, Kate’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean by again?”
“Seems like every couple years one is found over there,” she noted.
“Looks like a popular place, but with whom?”
“Everybody. Everybody who doesn’t want to have anything to do with anybody,” the woman replied.
“Explain what you mean by that,” Kate said.
“The area’s run-down. Anybody who’s here doesn’t really want to be here, but there are limitations as to how far anybody can go in this world, without some help.”
“Why are you still here?” Kate asked.
“Because it’s a job,” she stated simply. “I get to eat for free while I’m here, and it pays the bills.” She shrugged. “Nobody will hassle me. I’m well past being a looker, and, honest to God, most people are just grateful when they come in that they can get a cup of coffee.”
“How is the coffee here?”
“It sucks, but, at two o’clock in the morning, when you’re looking for coffee, you really don’t care. It’s a hot drink, and, on this rainy morning, people don’t really give a shit. They just want access to something.”
Kate studied the older woman, whose hair hung in thinning lengths down her head. It looked like she was balding early, whatever red hair she may have had was a more carroty orange, and her skull showed through. Her apron was dirty, but her hands appeared clean, and, although tired and worn-out, she looked like she could manage most verbally ugly clients. But there was nothing to her, if the customers became violent. The woman couldn’t have had more than 110 pounds on her frame, and she looked more like an old junkie street worker, who couldn’t find any more business because of her age.
“What was your clientele like last night?” Kate asked.
“The usual,” the woman said, studying Rodney. “A few came in—a couple girls, a couple guys. A few people grabbed some ready-made sandwiches. Other than that, it was pots of coffee and not a whole lot else. Matter of fact, last night was on the quiet side. The boss won’t be happy.” She chewed on her bottom lip and then shrugged, with an almost philosophical attitude, as if to say nothing she could do about it.
“If the boss isn’t happy, then what?”
“Hard to say,” she replied. “He’s been threatening to shut it down for a long time just because there’s not enough business to justify keeping it open.”
“I guess it’s a numbers game, isn’t it?” Rodney agreed sympathetically.
“It sure is,” she muttered, “and my numbers say, I need to keep working to pay the rent. So, if this shuts down, it’s not in my favor either. So I sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with any trouble.”
“Do you know anybody who would have? Any unsavory folks who came in last night who might have had something to do with the dead body in the dumpster?”
“No.” She shook her head. “All kinds of unsavory players are around here, but nobody I know of is into murder.”
“Right.” Kate frowned. “No cameras and you can’t ID anybody who came in after midnight?”
“I didn’t say that,” she corrected, looking over at Kate. “I didn’t say anything along that line.”
“Excuse me. My mistake. Can you identify anybody who was here?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure I can, but I didn’t say I couldn’t.”
“Okay, I’m confused.”
“Well, you didn’t ask,” she explained, “so I didn’t offer any information.”
“Right.” Kate tried to figure out this woman. “So, can you identify anybody who came in?”
“Sure. I mean, Louise was here. Sandy was here. Big Tom was here.” Her face crumpled up. “And that psycho was here, Little Mitt.”
“Little Mitt?”
“Yeah, he’s that half-Asian something or other crazy martial arts guy around here. He’s got some brain damage. He was pretty harmless for a long time, but lately he’s getting a little more off his rocker.”
“Where would I find this Little Mitt guy?”
“He hangs around the homeless shelters more than anything,” she noted. “Other than that, you’ll find him sleeping on a bench somewhere.”
“He was in last night?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it surprised me too because he had ten bucks on him.”
“Is that a lot for him?”
She nodded again. “It’s a lot for most people around here. When they get a couple coins, they come in for coffee.”
“What do you do at the end of the pot, when you can’t sell it anymore?”
An odd look came in the woman’s gaze, as she turned to face Kate again. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice almost worried.
“I’m not here to tell on you,” she responded quietly. “But surely, when a pot of coffee has been sitting there for too long, you don’t serve it.”
“No, I don’t. We’re supposed to dump it down the sink.”
“And, in most cases, you would.”
But she waited. As if she had a lifetime of waiting for others to speak first, never being the first to jump in with an answer. She just stared at Kate. “You got a point to make?” The woman finally caved in to the awkwardness, speaking with a note of challenge in her voice.
“I’m just wondering how many of these people know that a pot of coffee will get old after a while, so there might be free stale coffee available.” The woman frowned and looked down at her hands, and Kate realized that she’d hit a vulnerable spot. “Again, I’m not here to tell your boss. I’m also not here to complain about you making good use of food that’ll be wasted anyway,” she added. “I’m just trying to get an idea of who was in the area last night, who might have seen something, and who we can talk to next.”
The woman turned, looked out the window. “If he finds out, he’ll fire me.”
Rodney piped up. “For dumping old coffee into a cup instead of down the sink?”
She nodded. “He doesn’t like these guys hanging around. Calls them freeloaders and says that they’re a waste of space. He doesn’t even want them in his place,” she said. “He just doesn’t get it.”
“He doesn’t get it because he’s never been there,” Kate stated quietly. “You have, so you know what it’s like to go without any hot coffee on a cold night, don’t you?”
The woman looked at her and then nodded. “I do,” she answered, “and I don’t see the harm in not wasting something. Yet the boss would rather it be wasted than help someone who doesn’t have the money to buy a cup anyway.”
“Well, some people,” Rodney noted, “are supposed to follow orders regardless.”
“Some people, quite true,” she snapped. The woman crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him. “And your point is?”
“His point is, it doesn’t matter,” Kate said, with a wave of her hand. “The bottom line is that a few people stopped by looking for coffee last night. Can I get the names of those people?”
“I guess.” She paused. “They won’t thank me for passing on their names.”
“No, of course not.” Kate nodded. “I get that. But the woman who died in that alley won’t thank anybody either. Not unless we help her and at least give some meaning to her death, like by making sure nobody else goes the same way.”
“You think he’ll strike again?” the woman asked, scratching her arm.
Kate could see psoriasis patches, old ones, with dead flaky skin, and the woman just kept scratching. Kate reached out a hand and stilled the other woman’s movements. In a calm voice, Kate spoke, while removing her hand from the woman’s arm. “It’s possible. We just want to do our job, so we can put a stop to it.”
The woman frowned and pulled her sleeve over her scaly skin and leaned back a little farther. Obviously the contact was something she wasn’t comfortable with.
Rodney walked toward the door, ready to leave. “All we need is a couple names.”
The old woman looked at Kate first, then Rodney. She muttered a couple names in a soft and quiet voice that Kate couldn’t make out.
“I didn’t hear that,” Kate said, pulling out her notepad. “Can you just write them down, so we can remember them?”
She frowned at that and then shrugged, as if to accept that, if she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound, so what the hell. She wrote down two names. “These two were in last night.”
“You got the other names, right?” Rodney asked Kate, standing against the doorjamb, his arms across his chest. He looked down the street, then turned to the woman. “Looks like you might have some business coming.”
“Maybe, or it’s just my replacement.”
“Who takes over after you?”
“Riley,” she muttered. “He has been here since forever too. Honestly, if it weren’t for the two of us, the boss couldn’t keep this place open. Nobody else wants to work these hours.”
“They’re not the best, as hours go, are they?” Kate asked. She accepted her notebook back again, then asked, “How is the coffee now?”
“Shit,” the old woman replied, “but it’s all I have to serve.”
“Got it.” Kate hesitated. “Is it really bad, even if I’m desperate for coffee?”
“Yeah, it is,” she stated. “You better go down around the corner and get something better.”
Kate wasn’t sure if the push-off was because the older woman didn’t want them around any longer or if it really was ugly coffee, but Kate figured she’d take the hint anyway. “Good enough. Hopefully we won’t have to bother you again. If you do hear any rumors, talk, or anything along that line, give us a shout.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re not in the business anymore,” Kate noted, quietly taking a chance. “Yet you know a lot of women out there who are. We don’t know for sure that the woman we just found was on the streets because she was in reasonably decent shape, but she sure could have been.”
“She could have been new, or she could have been working high-end.”
“She could have been either of those, and she also could have been somebody’s mom. She was definitely somebody’s daughter.” Kate’s gaze bored into the other woman’s eyes. “Somebody has to care sometime.”
At that, the woman looked down at her fingers and muttered, “Nobody ever cares.”
“We care,” Kate responded, “but we still need help in order to solve these crimes and to ensure we don’t find another body in another alleyway.”
“You’ll find it anyway.” She sighed. “Another body, another day, another alley.”
“You’re right,” Kate agreed, “but let’s do our part to make sure there isn’t another one today.”
*
Simon stood in front of his building rehab project, arguing with his foreman about the siding to be used. Simon and his crews worked long days and weeks when on a deadline. No Sundays off if they could help it. “I don’t want any cheap vinyl,” Simon stated, “and you know that Hardie board lasts forever.”
“Not really,” he argued, “but it’s got to look like it belongs in this historical area too.”
“So what do you want to do?” Simon asked.
“Brick is expensive. Rock is expensive, and anything else looks like cheap plastic.”
“If we want to make it look like the rest of the buildings on this strip,” Simon noted, “I’ll have to go with a mixed-media look.” He groaned as he studied the tall building in front of him.
“Interesting that they made all these so tall and narrow,” the foreman noted. “Reminds me of London.”
“Only these are twice as tall.”
“Right. Still, it’s what we’ve got to deal with.”
“Let me think about that. How’s the plumbing?” Simon asked. Just as his foreman went to answer, Simon’s phone rang. He pulled it out, frowned, then shut it off and put it away.
“Do you need to answer that?”
“I’ll get it in a few minutes.” Kate would wait. Normally he wouldn’t not answer, but he knew he wouldn’t like anything about the message she had for him, so he was just as happy to push it off. After that, Simon and his foreman got into a heavy discussion on plumbing and budgets, then adaptations and change orders. Simon was loath to do too many change orders on one building because that was a surefire way to ensure no profits at the end of the day.
He was in this work for a couple reasons. One was turning these old buildings back into something useful and new, while rehabilitating them for use by the public. Most often for low-income families, homeless shelters, and often women’s shelters, although not everybody knew about them. This town had a huge need for senior living facilities as well. Which is precisely what this one would be.
As Simon headed off, after this final meeting, and walked toward home, he pulled out his phone again. “You called,” he said, when she answered.
“I did,” Kate answered briskly. “Remember that nightmare?”
“Which one?” he asked in a hard voice. “There’s been a few lately, and why the hell do I have to remember them anyway?”
“You don’t,” she acknowledged, “but you and I both know that whatever is going on in your psyche won’t let you rest until whatever the hell is going on is solved.”
“That’s an awful lot of vagaries,” he noted.
“Well, anytime you want to give me something definitive,” she replied in a cheerful voice, “I’d be happy to have them.” Her voice dropped as she added, “Especially right now.”
“Ah hell.” He stopped in his tracks; a person walking behind him bumped into him. With both of them apologizing and moving out of each other’s way, he hissed into the phone. “What did you find?”
“A pretty ugly scenario,” she replied quietly.
“I don’t really want to deal with any more ugly scenarios.”
“I get that,” she noted, “but, in this case, I’m not sure any of us have a choice.”
“Why not?” he snapped.
“Because her vocal cords were cut,” she answered quietly. “To stop her from screaming.”
A long, drawn-out hiss escaped as Simon realized which nightmare Kate was talking about.
“Ah, crap, the woman who was screaming but not screaming.”
“Yep, that one. At least as far as I can figure, that’s the one we’re talking about.”
“Meaning that I have more than one nightmare?”
“No,” she stated, with a note of finality. “Just hoping that we don’t have more than one murder victim.”
“Isn’t your desk piled rather high?”
“Too damn high,” she groaned.
“So it’s not like murder takes a holiday.”
“No, it doesn’t, unfortunately.”
He groaned. “What do you need from me?”
“As always, anything you have to give.”
“Wow, Detective,” he said in a mocking voice. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“You know I care,” she snapped right back in a pithy voice. “You just don’t know if I care very much.”
He shook his head at that because it was very true. He wasn’t even sure where the hell their relationship was at these days. She was independent, and, as much as he wanted her to be less independent, she struggled with their relationship as it was right now. “Fine,” he muttered. “What would you like from me?”
“A heads-up if you get any insights.”
“You know I’m pushing them away.”
“But I know that sometimes they won’t let you push them away. And, Simon, I get that you don’t want to do this,” she said. “I really do. But I’ve got to tell you, I really don’t want to stand over any more women who were in the condition of the one I saw today.”
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she replied. “I’ve got to go. Remember. Any answers you get, I’ll take them.”
“You don’t even believe in this bullshit,” he argued.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she snapped right back.
It was an argument they’d had many times, and he couldn’t blame her because he was definitely on the same side in terms of not knowing what to believe. Obviously he was a believer, but sometimes it all just seemed too damn far-fetched to be feasible. As he went to answer her, he realized she’d already hung up on him. He swore, staring down at his phone.
A man standing nearby, waiting for a bus, laughed at him. “Had to be a woman,” he stated. “Those are the only calls that can screw us over so badly.”
Simon looked at him, realized what the guy was saying, then chose to ignore him and walked away.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” the guy called out with a laugh.
The trouble was, it was almost true. The guy was right in some ways, and it was all Simon could do to figure out how it would ever work with Kate. Simon was used to having his relationships be a little more amiable. He was wealthy, busy, decent-looking, and confident. Women tended to fawn all over him. Although his last relationship had ended with a less-than-stellar result, he’d firmly expected that, when he was ready, he would find somebody new, somebody better suited to him.
Kate was not even close to what he had imagined. She was contrary, cranky, independent, and she worked too damn hard. And he just couldn’t get enough of her.
Chapter 3
Detective Kate Morgan walked into the jail cell and asked for the prisoner she had sent to sober up. She was given the log-in book to take a look at. She identified the prisoner and asked to speak with him, then headed over to the interview room she had been assigned and sat down, waiting.
Soon the prisoner walked in on his own accord, looking a little sheepish and red-eyed. He sat down nervously on the chair across the table from her. “Good morning, ma’am,” he started.
She looked at him in surprise and just waited.
He winced. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the streets, but I ain’t never seen anything like that.”
“Hopefully you’ll never see it again either,” she replied in a quiet voice.
He nodded. “I know. Look. It wasn’t the right thing under the circumstances, but I just couldn’t think of anything to do but drink enough to stop seeing that. Turns out it was burned into my brain.” He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat a couple times. “Could I possibly get a drink of water?”
She nodded, then walked to the door and asked for water for the interviewee. When it was delivered in a bottle, he uncapped it and drank. She watched, as he gulped the bulk of it in one sitting, then wiped his mouth again.
“Thank you,” he said. “Nothing like alcohol to make your throat dry.”
She wanted to ask why he continued to drink, if that were the case, but she had come to accept it as one of those things. It didn’t matter what answer he gave; the addiction was real. Or almost as uncontrollable as anything else in life. She pulled her notepad toward her and picked up the pen. “Now tell me. What did you see?”
“The devil,” he replied instantly. “No doubt in my mind, the devil himself was there last night.”
She put down the pen, crossed her arms, and looked at him.
He immediately held up his hand. “I get it. You don’t believe me. But I’m telling you, it was the devil.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Nothing good,” he stated.
“Did you see him kill that woman?”
The witness immediately shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope, nope. I didn’t see nothing like that.”
“So then what did you see?”
“He came out of the alleyway, wearing a big cloak and a mask with horns,” he told her.
“So this devil wore the devil’s mask?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “It looked really real.”
She nodded and put down a couple simple notes. “Any idea how tall he was? How big he was? Did he hold anything in his hand? Did you see him bring in the woman?”
“Nope,” he answered. “I was just sitting there, snoozing, then I heard a weird thunk, thunk, thunk sound and heard him saying something. When I looked around the corner—from where I was hiding farther down the alleyway—he stood in front of the dumpster, his hands on his hips like this.” Her interviewee hopped up, put his hands on his hips, and glared, as if the table were the dumpster.
“So he was pissed?”
He nodded. “He looked like it. But he had on this weird mask, like I said. And the way he was standing there, I didn’t really see his face. So I don’t know if it was anger for sure, but that’s what it seemed like,” he explained apologetically.
“And, if you did see his face, what would you have seen?”
He shrugged. “Well, it would have been just the mask.”
“Height?”
“I’m thinking around six foot,” he guessed.
“And you figured that out how?”
“Well, he could rest his arms easily on the top of the dumpster.”
That she wrote down. “Did he have anything in his hands or anything with him?”
He shook his head. “Not that I saw.”
“Did he come past you?”
He shook his head. “Nope, nope, no way. I wasn’t gonna let that happen. I would have been out of there beforehand, but, when I saw him heading down to the other end, I let him go, and then I called the police.”
“But you didn’t call the police right away, did you?”
He looked around nervously.
“Because first you wanted to see what he put in the dumpster, didn’t you?”
The guy lifted his gaze, and she saw the haunted look in his eyes.
“Well, he cured me of that.” His voice was harsh, almost guttural in tone. “Because what I saw is something I won’t ever unsee.”
As she remembered the poor woman with the visible torture evident on her body, she could only agree with him. “What else can you tell me?”
“Nothing.” He laughed. “That was all.”
“Did he stop on the way as he left? Did he throw anything on the way out of the alley? Did he turn and look back?”
“No, he just walked away.”
She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. “And there’s nothing else you can tell me?”
He shook his head. “No, he wore this long thing that looked like a cloak and the mask, but that was it.”
“Did he have the mask on when you first saw him?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.” He paused. “He also had this, you know, like a big hood on the long coat.”
“So, was it a cape or a coat?”
He shrugged.
“But it had a hood? So how do you know he wore a devil’s mask?”
“Because he pushed the hood off his head, when he looked up at the sky. Remember when I said he was standing, his hands on his hips, as if he was frustrated, angry, or something?”
“Got it,” she muttered, wishing there was more. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but when did any of this shit make sense? She wrote down the name of her witness. “Do you have an address? Somewhere you stay?”
“Not for a very long time,” he answered.
“Do you stay at any of the shelters?”
“When I can get a bed. Other than that, I just go from park to park.”
She sighed and sat back. “Was anybody else there around at the time?”
“Nope. Just me.”
“You don’t have any friends you hang out with?”
“I do, but I had a full bottle of booze,” he explained. “Matter of fact, I was supposed to go share it, but I drank it all, after seeing that dumpster last night.” He shook his head. “I knew I wouldn’t be welcome if they found out I’d done that.”
“Well, you also spent the day in the tank.”
“And thank you for that,” he said. “It was nice and dry.”
She sighed. “You know that we could give you a hand to get you dried out.”
“There have been lots of hands over the years.” He sniffled, his eyes turning rheumy with emotions. “Ain’t none of them ever took yet.”
“Doesn’t mean they can’t,” she argued.
“Maybe,” he muttered. “But I’d have to give up the one thing that’s been good to me.”
“You mean, the bottle?” she asked gently.
He nodded. “Yeah, she’s always there for me.”
“But she’s a bitch in the morning,” Kate added, with a note of humor.
He looked at her, and a bright smile flashed on his face. “That she is,” he noted affectionately, “but she’s my bitch.”
And that was about the truth of it. After he was gone, Kate returned to her department. As she walked to the bullpen, she picked up a coffee, wondering how, ever since the team had all come to terms, there was always coffee now.
As she neared her desk, her landline was ringing. She groaned, raced over, and grabbed it. “Detective Kate Morgan here.”
Dr. Smidge was on the other end. “I’ve got your DB from this morning on the table.”
“Already? It must be almost like a holiday down there.”
“Not likely,” he snapped. “A couple things you should probably go over.”
“I’m on my way,” she replied. “Give me half an hour.”
“That’s all right. I got lots of paperwork and plenty to deal with.”
When he hung up the phone, she turned and looked over at Rodney. “That was Dr. Smidge. He’s got this morning’s victim on the table, and he wants me to go over there for some reason.”
At that, Rodney looked up, startled.
“I know. Most of the time he’s kicking us out of there.”
“How did it get on his table so fast?”
“I asked him that and made a smart remark about it must be a holiday if he’s already up to this patient, but he didn’t seem to appreciate it.”
“Well, that’s nothing new either.” Rodney hopped up to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
“You got anything else to do at the same time?”
“Go back over the crime scene,” he replied, with a shrug. “A couple statements that I wouldn’t mind going over.”
“Locals?”
“Some people saw something a couple blocks away.”
“A couple blocks away?” She frowned as they walked out of the office. She looked longingly at the cup of coffee sitting and cooling on her desk.
He stopped her, pointing at the coffee. “Look. You can have a few minutes to drink it, if you want.” She hesitated, and he said, “Stop. You know this isn’t just about getting to the bottom of it. It’s also about not killing ourselves in the process.” She shot him a look, and he nodded. “Think about it. We won’t be doing the victim any good if we get there out of sorts. It won’t be any picnic to see that again. Best that we’re calm, collected, and pulled together. And, for you, that means, grab your damn coffee.”
She walked back to her desk, picked it up, and had several sips. Her computer wasn’t even on yet. She looked around at the bullpen. “Where are the others?”
“Two were in with the sergeant,” Rodney noted quietly.
“Problems?”
“No. One needs some personal time off. One’s trying to arrange some holidays. Owen was in, and then he headed out to talk to a couple constables, doing some of the canvassing last night.”
“On the same case?”
Rodney nodded. “He’s the one who phoned in to say that somebody a couple blocks away had heard and seen something suspicious.”
She shook her head. “Why a couple blocks away?”
He pulled out his phone, looked up the statement he wanted, and replied, “There was a pickup rumbling around the streets, going around the block several times, as if looking for something. He noted it because of a funky tarp in the back—something rolled up.”
“So you’re thinking it might have been the body in the back?”
“That’s what Owen was wondering. Anyway, he went down to talk with our witness this morning before work and confirmed the model of the vehicle. It was an old Chevy with a rusted-out muffler, so it was making more noise than it needed to. A pickup bed with no liner, unless it was a sprayed-on black one, and then a bright green tarp in the back.”
“We found no tarp at the scene,” she murmured.
“And the Chevy was black, with a little bit of white trim around the rims.”
“So, old rims?”
“It could have been. It’s hard to say. They could have just been dirty. They could have been white rims and just really muddy.”
She nodded. “And then what? He comes down to this area, starts running around, looking at things, looking for a place to dump a body maybe?”
“That’s what Owen was wondering.”
“Where is he now?”
“Remember the case we had last week? The one with a couple rocks thrown off one of the bridges and hitting a pedestrian down below?” he asked. “He got a line on that one.”
“That pedestrian didn’t die, did she?”
“No, but she was a friend of his.”
“Ah, it’s funny how friends completely change everything.”
“Well, they’re not supposed to,” he noted, with a smile. “Yet there has to be a little bit of leeway in what we do. This isn’t just a job for today. It’s a long-term gig for us.”
“Exactly.” She tossed back the last of her coffee, put down her cup, and said, “Let’s go.”
As they headed toward the morgue, they found parking in the back of the hospital and walked down to the basement via the tunnel, where the morgue was situated. She knocked on the doors of the offices, and, when there was no answer, she turned the knob and stepped through, but the rooms were empty. She rolled her eyes and headed down to where the real action was.
“You were really thinking he’d be in the office?” Rodney asked, with a grin.
“He’s never in his office, is he? But it’s before the rest of it, so you always think you have to start there.”
“I don’t know. I think I would just completely ignore offices at this point and head down to his little corner,” Rodney explained. And that’s what they did anyway.
When she stepped through the double doors, Dr. Smidge looked up and frowned. “Gown up. Make sure you scrub down well.”
