Beckett felt his heart start to beat more rapidly in his chest, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what was left to teach in the forensic pathology course.
And then it came to him.
“Jesus, not that,” he whispered.
Suzan didn’t answer. Instead, she turned back to the computer and scrolled to the last test slide. Then she clicked once more.
Beckett’s heart took a nosedive into the pit of his stomach.
Jesus Christ. Babies?
Chapter 23
The man sat in his car with the engine off. It was midday, and he was parked under the shade of a large Oak tree. Cool as the air was, the sun was still bright and powerful.
It was the perfect vantage point.
No one saw him. And even if someone had noticed him, what could they say? A man, trying to hide in the shadows, trying to remain unseen.
And so what?
Most men cruising for prostitutes did this very thing. Especially here. Being discrete was the name of the game.
The man watched as several women—thin, gaunt things with sparse hair and sores on their lips—strolled by. A few of them glanced briefly over in his direction, but they never approached his car. Something kept them away, and he was glad.
After all, he wasn’t looking for them. He was looking for something else, something more specific.
The man waited. And waited.
He was patient. He could wait a long time for what he needed, for the perfect specimen.
If his time in prison had taught him one thing, it was that waiting—watching and waiting—was a virtue that could not be overlooked.
But, as with the others, his patience wasn’t tested; he didn’t have to wait long.
A man with short red hair and chest hair of the same shade poking out the top of a sequined muscle shirt knocked gently on his window.
“Hey,” the red-head said through the glass. “I seen you looking at the girls. Not interested in them, huh? Maybe you want something… different?”
He smiled when he said this, a valiant, yet failed effort at coquettishness.
The man rolled down the window a few inches and offered his own wry smile.
“You know what? I think you might be right. Why don’t you hop in?”
Chapter 24
Chase stared at the images that Beckett had printed and laid on the table in his office.
Eight images, all depicting gruesome deaths, all of them suicide or accidental. The fourth looked uncannily like the Jane Doe they had just pulled from the pond in Central Park last night.
And yet, she still wasn’t sure that she understood exactly what Beckett was telling her.
“So all of these are—what? Part of a test?”
Beckett nodded.
“Exactly. Part of the final exam for residents in forensic pathology. But, here—” he tapped the photograph of the drowned woman with the foam cone, then the image of her soft, wrinkled hands. “This is almost exactly the same as the woman we drudged out of the pond last night.”
Chase tilted her head to one side, then the other as she observed the photo. It really did look similar. And yet, she remained unconvinced.
“Yeah, but so what? You said yourself that these photographs are meant to be representative. The fact that a body drowned in water for three days looks like this… isn’t that to be expected?”
Beckett nodded.
“Sure, representative, but this is insanely close. Too close to be a coincidence. Maybe on its own I could chalk it up to coincide, but not when you take it with the others. Chase, look at me.”
Chase’s eyes flicked up and she focused on Beckett’s. Six months ago, he had been a stranger to her, but ever since Drake had left the force, they had gotten closer. So close that she considered the man a good, if strange, friend and not just a colleague.
And she knew that he was serious about this, something that seemed out of place and inconsistent with his usual, jovial, sarcastic demeanor.
“I went to this crime scene, Chase,” he said, tapping the photo of the hanged man. “I saw Dr. Larringer’s body. This is no fucking coincidence. This is… this is murder.”
Chase swallowed hard as she leaned over the table and indicated the second image, the one with the bloody wrists.
“And I went to this crime scene,” she said softly. “I saw this man—Martin Dean. His death was ruled a suicide.”
Beckett took a deep breath before responding.
“And the first one? Positional asphyxia? You ever seen something like this?”
Chase shook her head.
“Well I have,” Beckett continued. “But not in person; in a photograph.”
Chase once again raised her eyes to look at him.
“What do you mean? You’ve seen this picture?”
Beckett shook his head.
“No, not this one. But one almost exactly like it. Just…” he thought back to the lines on the man’s sweater, how they went east/west. “But his sweater was a little different.”
“You still have it?”
“No. Not anymore. I had it—I had a folder full of images—but it’s gone. I think… I think someone stole it.”
Chase grunted.
“What?”
Beckett sighed, and she sensed his embarrassment in this exasperated gesture.
“It was stolen.”
“How—” but Chase didn’t get to finish her question. The door behind her suddenly opened, and she spun around, her hand immediately going to the gun on her hip.
When she saw who it was, her hand fell away.
“What the—what the hell are you doing here?” she gasped.
Chapter 25
One drink led to another, as they always seem to, and before long, Drake found himself back at Barney’s. He nodded to Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, and the two large men reluctantly parted for him to enter.
“Mickey!” he shouted. The bartender smiled at him from behind the bar.
“Drake! Welcome back. I guess this place ain’t half bad, after all.”
Drake laughed.
“Guess not. Hit me up with a double of Johnny. Neat,” he said as he took a seat at the closest end of the bar.
“You got it,” Mickey replied.
As he waited for his drink, Drake glanced around. When he had come to Barney’s the previous night, he had considered it a nightclub only—sorry, a supper club, as Mickey referred to it—but now, long before the sun had set, he realized that his assessment had been wrong in many respects. For one, it really wasn’t that bad. Drake figured that with a few more drinks and by squinting his eyes, he might actually be able to imagine it the way it used to be.
Minus the driftwood bar, of course. While he would never love this iteration of Barney’s, maybe, just maybe, he could get used to it. In fact, Drake was beginning to understand that a man could become accustomed to many things.
Like the death of their partner, say, or a complete change in careers.
He shook the thoughts from his head.
“Hey Mickey, you distilling my drink or pouring it?”
Again, the bartender laughed, and then quickly turned around, glass in hand. He slid it over to Drake, who finished half of it in one gulp.
“So, Drake, you have a good time last night?”
Drake swirled the remaining golden liquid in his glass, his memories turning to the way Alyssa had looked on his couch, the cigarette clutched between her full lips, her naked body glistening with a mixture of sweat and ecstasy.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “As much as it pains me to admit it, considering I spent the evening in this eyesore, I guess I did. You seen Alyssa today?”
Mickey squinted at him while he twirled the corners of his mustache.
“Alyssa, hmm? She caught your fancy, didn’t she?”
Drake shrugged.
“Maybe she did. Have you seen her?”
Mickey shook his head and turned his back to Drake. As he began preparing dri
nks for a couple who had sat at the other end of the bar, he said, “No, haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s working somewhere else tonight. Stick around, though, she might show up.”
Drake opened his mouth to answer, but hushed whispers from the newly seated couple drew his attention.
He hadn’t caught all of what was said, but two words were unmistakable: Butterfly Killer.
Drink in hand, Drake swiveled to face them, his lip pressed upward in a sneer.
“Yeah? What about him?” he asked gruffly.
The man, who was thick through the chest and arms, with dirty blond hair tied up into a small bun atop his head, shot his girlfriend a weary look. The woman, who looked skinny enough to be a model, but not nearly unique enough, pursed her lips.
They both shrugged.
“You’re that guy, aren’t you?” the man asked.
“That guy?”
“Sure, the detective… uh, uh, the detective with the rapper name. Khalifa?” he snapped his fingers several times, trying to remember. “Naw. Lamar? Wheezy?”
This game was starting to annoy Drake, and he let his displeasure show on his face.
“Woah, sorry, bro,” then the man’s face lit up. “Drake! That’s it, Detective Drake!”
Drake thought about coming back with something witty, snide maybe, or perhaps even intimidating, but he was too drunk to come up with anything on the spot. Besides, he was in no mood for an altercation. Taking another sip of whiskey, he held his free hand out to one side.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Shit! Well, I’ll be damned. You took that killer out, didn’t you? Merked him good. I mean, that guy was ruthless, growing butterflies in those rich bastards’ bodies like that. You’re one bad mofo, ain’t you, Drake?” Manbun looked as if he was going to say more, but his girlfriend elbowed him hard in the ribs, then whispered something in his ear that Drake didn’t pick up.
“All of them?” the man asked. His girlfriend nodded emphatically. Manbun turned back to Drake.
“Well, looks like it’s your lucky day. My girl here thinks that you’re some sort of celebrity, wants me to buy your drinks tonight? What do you say, Drake? That sound good to you? A sort of thank you for taking that prick out?”
Drake smirked.
“What do I say? I say I hope you have a thick wallet, bro.”
The smile slid off Manbun’s face, and Drake immediately turned to Mickey. He was surprised to see that the bartender was standing directly in front of him, already holding up the bottle of Johnny Red. He was smiling so hard that you could see his top teeth despite the bushy gray mustache.
“Fill ‘er up, barkeep. And keep ‘em coming all night long… bro.”
Chapter 26
“Shit,” Beckett said. “Suze, I told you to come back after lunch.”
Suzan Cuthbert stood in the doorway, a brown paper bag in each hand. She held them out to her sides, her eyes darting from Chase to Beckett and back again.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said innocently. “Who are you, by the way?”
Beckett watched as Chase’s face contorted.
He spared her the introduction.
“Suze, this is Detective Chase Adams. She used to—”
Suzan’s mouth instantly twisted into a grimace.
“You used to work with him, didn’t you?”
Chase took a small step backward.
“Look, I know that—”
“—you don’t know shit,” Suzan spat. “That bastard… he got my dad killed. He fucked up and it cost me nearly everything.”
The brown bags fell to the floor in an audible plop.
“Suze, I know how you feel about Drake—I do,” Beckett said. “And I’m not going to try to convince you differently, but c’mon now. Be reasonable. Chase didn’t choose her partner. Don’t take your anger and hatred for Drake out on her.”
Suzan’s stern glare faltered for a moment, and Beckett continued quickly, seizing this moment of weakness to appeal to her morality.
“We have to work together to figure this thing out. We need Chase’s help; we need her to stop a killer.”
This seemed to do it; Suzan bent at the waist and picked up the bags. Then, with a heavy sigh, she said, “Well let’s get at it then. I think I got enough for all three of us.”
***
After wolfing down the greasy burgers—Beckett felt as if he hadn’t eaten in a month—the three of them turned their attention to the photographs on the desk. As they looked them over, Beckett briefly went over his conversation with Dr. Tracey Moorfield, and then turned to Chase.
“I’m going to head to the morgue, see if I can find anything on the bodies, any evidence to suggest that their deaths weren’t accidental or suicide. Chase, is there anything you can do back at the precinct, set up a task force maybe to find this guy? Like you did for the Butterfly Killer?”
Chase ground her teeth.
“That’s going to be tough.”
It was Suzan who spoke up next.
“Tough? We have a serial killer on the loose—a man who is making all of his murders look like suicide. Isn’t that enough? I mean, this guy could have killed dozens of people already. How many suicides in New York City last year alone?”
Chase’s reply was immediate.
“Over five hundred.”
Beckett gaped.
“Five hundred? That has to be over a few years.”
Chase shook her head.
“Last year alone. Closer to six hundred, actually.”
Silence fell over them. Beckett’s mind was struggling to wrap itself around the idea that over five hundred people committed suicide last year in New York City. He could personally remember a dozen or so that he had overseen, and while he knew that the ME wasn’t called in for all cases of obvious suicide, he couldn’t fathom the number being so high.
Suzan cleared her throat.
“Let’s just focus on these ones for now,” she said softly. Clearly, she hadn’t expected the number to be that high, either. “So why can’t we set up a task force?”
“Sergeant Rhodes… it’s close to election time. He won’t go on a wild goose chase, work NYC into a frenzy with another serial killer less than six months removed from the last one. I can’t bring this to him, not like this. He won’t go for this, no way, no how. Not without any evidence.”
Beckett frowned. Although his interactions with Sergeant Rhodes had been limited, he had heard enough from Drake to know what an asshole he was.
“Like I said, I’ll recheck all the bodies to see if I can find any evidence of foul play. But I’ll tell you now, it’s going to be tough. Two of the bodies have already been cleared.”
His response, as rational as it was, seemed to enrage Suzan. This was just a little too close to home for her after what had happened to her father at the hands of the Skeleton King.
“So, what? We just wait for this guy to strike again? Really? That’s the plan? Are we going to wait for the babies to die before we actually do something about it?”
Chase’s eyes went wide and she turned to Beckett.
“Babies? What does she mean, babies?”
Beckett rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he did.
“There are eight images on the test, Chase, but—”
Beckett was interrupted by Chase’s phone ringing. He opened his eyes as she turned her back to them and answered.
“Adams,” she said, then listened. As Beckett watched, her shoulders started to sag. By the time she sounded off, her entire body seemed to melt.
She turned slowly, her eyes downcast. When she spoke, her words were barely a whisper.
“Looks like we won’t have to wait long,” she said, and then raised her eyes to look at the fifth photograph. “There’s been another suicide.”
Chapter 27
Drake stumbled out of Barney’s just as the sun started to dip below the horizon. His stomach was so full of whiskey that he could literally hear it
sloshing in his belly with every step, and it seemed to set him off balance. As a result, he stumbled into one of the bouncers on the way out.
“Sorry,” he grumbled, which came out more in a series of s’s instead of an actual word.
Despite what Mickey had said, Alyssa had never showed, which had put him somewhat of a sour mood. Not completely sour, mind you; he still had a desk full of ten thousand dollar checks, a suddenly booming PI business, and a woman… somewhere.
Drake mumbled to himself as he sauntered onto the sidewalk. The line-up outside Barney’s was starting to grow, he noticed, but this was mostly just for show. He’d been inside and it had been practically empty. Tweedle-dee and his partner -dum were just keeping people outside to make the bar look like it was more popular than it actually was.
Not a bad strategy, he surmised.
He blinked slowly and then continued down the sidewalk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a police car cruise by. It slowed, and Drake craned his neck to look at it.
Even through blurred vision, he thought he recognized the officer in the passenger seat. They locked eyes for a moment, and both Drake and the car came to a full stop.
The smirk sloughed off Drake’s face.
“What?” he snapped. “What do you want?”
The officer, whose name escaped Drake, but whose face did not, frowned, then he rolled down the window.
Drake strode forward, unconsciously balling his fists.
“What?” he said again, louder this time.
The police officer hawked, then spat a loogie on the ground just beside Drake’s shoe. Drake charged toward the car, raising his fists in front of him. But before he made it to the car, the officer rolled up the window and sped off. Drake reached for the bumper, but his depth perception and balance were off and his heel slipped on the curb.
Drunk and disoriented, he went down hard on his ass. He grunted, but instead of trying to get up, he simply lay on his back and stared up at the darkening sky.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 38