But now, feeling the blood coursing through his veins with renewed vigor, he realized that it had been a lie. This whole time, he had been lying to everyone.
The worst part was that he had been lying to himself.
With a heavy sigh, Drake turned his head to the iron archway over the worn dirt path that marked the entrance to Fallen Heights Cemetery.
Then he stepped out into the sun.
***
Drake slumped into the front seat of his car and then wiped the tears from his eyes.
He had hoped that coming here, that visiting Clay’s grave would give him some insight into the murders, help him think like Clay had, but it had been a fool’s errand.
The only thing that coming here had given him was a bad case of memories.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, clearing his throat before answering.
“Screech? Did you find something?”
It seemed impossible, given that they had spoken less than an hour ago, but up until a week ago the idea of having miniature cameras set up and transmit live, high-quality video directly to his cell phone had seemed like science fiction, as well.
The only response was heavy breathing.
Drake sat up straight.
“Screech? Everything okay?”
“It’s… it’s Steff.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed, and he thought about the way that Jake had spoken to her, to both of them.
He better not have hit her.
“Steff, everything okay?”
“I don’t—I don’t have much time. He’ll be back soon, and he doesn’t want me talking to you.”
“Who? Who doesn’t—”
“Jake. Can we meet? I don’t have much time.”
Drake slammed the car into drive.
“Patty’s Diner. You know it?”
There was a short pause.
“I can find it.”
Drake’s foot jammed down hard on the gas pedal and his Crown Vic leaped forward.
“Good, I’ll meet you there in twenty,” he said as he sped back toward the city.
Chapter 46
Kenneth Smith took a long pull on his cigar, admiring the way the tendrils of smoke wrapped around the glowing end.
“Raul? Any update on the numbers?”
Raul stepped around the front of his chair, a silver tray with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and a single glass resting on the top in his outstretched hands.
“You are still ahead by three points on most polls,” a stone-faced Raul said in his thick Spanish accent.
As Raul poured two fingers of whiskey and set the glass on the table beside Ken, he took another drag of his cigar.
“But Dr. Hammond still has a lead in all districts around NYU. Have I got that right?”
“Jes, sir.”
Ken took a sip of whiskey. After what had happened to Thomas, he had thought that his mayorship was all but a given. But while he had garnered some—most—of the sympathy vote, and he had the backing of the NYPD, a doctor with the impeccable record that Dr. Hammond possessed proved to be a tougher challenge than expected.
Impeccable record… no one is that clean.
Ken thought back to his conversation with Damien Drake all those months ago, and realized that he was still missing someone on his staff with the man’s particular skill set.
All-in-all, he was pleased with the way that things worked out in the wake of the Butterfly Killer. Rhodes had played his role well; he had forced Drake out of the force, just as Ken had intended. But then something strange happened.
Drake didn’t take the bait; he never came knocking on Ken’s door, asking to take him up on his offer as he had expected, as he had planned.
Raul had done some recon,= and had found out that Drake was now running a small PI firm in the East end of the city.
He knew Drake, and people like him. He had come across dozens of iterations during his time as a litigator. People like Drake just couldn’t stay away. They could try, and by all accounts Drake had given it a valiant effort, but it was only a matter of time before everything else in his life seemed inconsequential.
The man had been marked at birth; marked to track down the most villainous, immoral members of society. And nothing could temper that uncompromising urge.
And yet Ken had never expected it to go this far, had never thought that he had to enact part two of his plan.
Ken finished his whiskey and indicated for Raul to pour him another glass.
Six months until election day.
And when that day came, he wanted Damien Drake at his side.
“You okay, sir?” Raul asked, concern in his voice.
Ken took a drag from his cigar, once again watching the hypnotic way the smoke curled and wrapped itself around the air before dissipating.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”
He needed Drake by his side, and it was only a matter of time before he had him. Because what Ken Smith wanted, Ken Smith got. And that was how he was wired.
Chapter 47
Screech cracked his knuckles then he took a deep breath and attacked his keyboard, typing with such speed that his fingers became a blur.
He was still in shock that Drake had gone ahead and offered him half of Triple D. A week ago, Screech had considered his position, and honestly, the PI firm as a whole, a stopgap measure. After all, before Mrs. Armatridge, things had been going very, very slowly. Drake wasn’t well liked by the NYPD, and although the idea of having an ex-NYPD detective as a PI was appealing to most, clients were still hesitant. People knew Drake, and their knowledge was based on what the media published, which wasn’t favorable.
But then Mrs. Armatridge had showed up, seemingly out of nowhere, and all of a sudden things had changed.
Which was fine by Screech. He wasn’t one to question the karma of the cosmos; quite the contrary. He went with the flow. And if solving these murders managed to get Drake back in the NYPD and the public’s good graces, then that would only serve to increase the number of Mrs. Armatridge-types that came in through the door.
But it was more than that; no moral justice warrior was Screech, and yet there was something to be said for being part of a team that took a murder of the street. That had to be worth more than helping old bitties put a maid in jail for stealing silverware.
Much more.
Screech spent the next half hour looking into the forensic pathology course notes, focusing on their availability online. But when this brought up no leads, he took a short break to crush a Mountain Dew and reconsider.
What had Chase and Drake said? That the young doctor was key. He was the odd man out, the one that didn’t quite fit with the drifters and those shunned by society that had turned up dead.
When Screech turned back to his computer, he changed his approach. Instead of looking into the pathology course, he started to read about the students, about the lives that medical students and residents lived.
And then, after nearly an hour of searching, he came across something that he thought interesting. It wasn’t an article about NYU medical students, but an article in the Montreal Gazette about McGill University, a prestigious university in Montreal, Quebec. In explicit terms, the article outlined the transgressions of the medical staff, their mistreatment of the students, about how their medical school license was in jeopardy as a result of their actions. It didn’t appear to be the case of the students being spoiled brats, either. There were reports of young doctors who weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom for hours on end for fear of being berated in front of their peers, about forty-hour shifts without breaks. All of this had culminated with a patient being prescribed a contraindicated medication that put the poor schlep in a coma for more than a week.
Screech leaned back again, letting this all sink in.
“Huh,” he said, grateful that his route of post-secondary education, as short as it had been, had taken him into computer engineering and not medicine. Groaning, Screech st
ood and made his way to the fridge, withdrawing the last Mountain Dew. He popped the top, waited for the fizz to die down, then returned to his chair.
On a whim, he typed the name of the doctor who had created the forensic pathology slides, Dr. Tracey Moorfield.
As expected, nothing interesting came to the fore. But when he combined her name with ‘academic misconduct’ he got a hit.
Just a single article, published more than two decades ago.
Swishing the citrusy liquid around in his mouth, Screech rubbed his eyes, then started to read.
Chapter 48
There was something about Broomhilda’s presence in Patty’s Diner that felt oddly comfortable to Drake, that felt normal.
“Coffee, please,” he said when she came over to serve him. While he had recognized her immediately, her flat expression suggested that she had no idea who he was. Drake supposed that was a good thing, although he wasn’t entirely sure. “And Key Lime pie, if it’s fresh.”
The woman grunted then turned back toward the kitchen.
A moment later, the door opened, and Drake felt his breath come more quickly. He pictured Ivan Meitzer coming through the door, a dark hood pulled over his head, a bulge in his chest where he kept the envelope full of cash.
But it wasn’t Ivan who entered Patty’s Diner, but a woman. Like Ivan, however, she had the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, shrouding her face in shadows.
“Steff?” he said just loud enough for her to hear. “Over here.”
The woman turned to face him, and then hurried to the booth.
“I don’t have much time,” she said. Drake tried to lean down to get a better look at her face, but she tucked her chin, hiding her features.
“What’s going on, Steff?” he asked with concern.
She ignored the comment.
“There is no way that Eddie committed suicide. Sure, he was struggling, but all of his friends were struggling, too. Based on everything that he told me, Dr. Campbell is tough.”
Drake considered this for a moment, trying to picture his friend with the spiky hair, the wide smile, doing his best Mussolini impression at the front of the classroom.
But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get the image to stick.
“He said… he said he had found something, something about the forensic pathology course that had scared him.”
Drake nodded and for a brief moment, he debated telling the girl that Eddie had come to see him with the same concerns, before deciding against it. He didn’t want to bias her; he was here to listen to what she had to say, and that was all. That was his role in this.
For now.
“Did he say anything else? Anything that might help find the bastard who did this to him?”
Steff tilted her head backward, just enough for Drake to make out her chin and lower lip. He thought he caught sight the beginnings of a bruise at the corner of her mouth, and his mind turned to Jake back in the kitchen.
He’s started hitting her.
Drake hated abusive boyfriends and spouses nearly as much as he hated the murderers he had spent the better part of a decade chasing.
“Eddie told me that he was looking for a tutor online and he came across a bulletin board. Someone reached out to him, and told him that he had the answers to the upcoming final exam.”
“Did he say anything about this guy? Did he go and meet him?”
Steff shook her head and as she did, her hood slipped backward, revealing a nasty welt below her right eye.
“He just said that the man somehow obtained the answers, that’s all.”
“Did he give a name? A description? Anything to go on?”
Steff chewed her lip again.
“The only thing that he told me was the man’s handle on the bulletin board.”
“And? What was it?”
Steff leaned forward and was about to say something, when her phone buzzed. With a trembling hand, she pulled it from her pocket and stared at the glowing screen, her eyes going wide.
“Shit. He’s looking for me.” Steff leaped to her feet. “I have to go.”
Drake stood as well. He reached for her, but she cowered away from him.
“I’m sorry, I have to go. I can’t…” she let her sentence trail off.
“Don’t go back to him, Steff,” Drake said quickly. “I’ve seen people like him, and the abuse… it’s not going to stop. It’s only going to get worse. Don’t go back to him.”
Steff started toward the door, her pace frantic now.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t. I have to go.”
She was nearly at the door by the time Drake managed to slide out of the booth.
“Wait! Steff, wait!”
But she didn’t wait; instead, she pulled the door wide so violently that the small metal bell above the door almost flew off the hook.
Drake, aware that everyone in the diner was now looking at him, but not caring, shouted, “What was the handle, Steff? What was the man’s handle?”
Steff paused and then turned back.
“Arson, something or other,” she said, then added, “I’m sorry.”
With that, she was gone.
Drake stood in the center of the diner as he watched her go, stunned by what she had told him.
Someone placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. He whipped around and found himself staring at Broomhilda’s weathered face.
“You still want your Key Lime pie?”
Chapter 49
Chase tapped her pen on her desk, filling her office with a tinny drumroll. Every few minutes her eyes flicked over to the other desk, before frowning when it remained empty. She remembered Drake sitting there, across from her, swearing as he tried to figure out how to get the department computer system to work.
After Drake had resigned, Rhodes had promoted her, but while he had promised to get her a new partner, there didn’t seem to be any movement on that front.
It got lonely inside her own head; she missed someone with the grace of a bull to occupy her thoughts.
She missed Drake.
It hadn’t occurred to her before, but now that they were working together again, albeit on an informal basis, it was something that she couldn’t ignore.
And she saw it in his eyes, too; he missed her—if not her, then at least the job.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, went her pen.
Focus, Chase.
But she couldn’t focus. This wasn’t like any other case that she had been a part of during her career—in Seattle or in NYC. She was working to find a killer whom no one but her party of misfits thought existed.
But maybe… maybe that’s our edge, she thought suddenly. Nobody knows that we’re looking for him, not even the killer.
Chase made a hmph sound as she considered this.
Nobody knows that we’re looking for a killer…
Except that wasn’t quite true. Dr. Edison knew that something was up. And he had ended up dead.
Everyone else was a drifter, a nobody.
It was clear that their killer preferred to take out the lower rungs of society, but wasn’t afraid to climb up that ladder if someone threatened to put them in the limelight. If someone got close, he wouldn’t hesitate to make them part of his macabre re-enactments, no matter who it was.
Chase tried to put the puzzle pieces together in her head, but this got her nowhere.
She picked up her phone and hit redial.
“Dunbar? Its Chase. You got anything yet?”
“Hold on a sec,” Dunbar whispered. She heard him shuffling and then the sound of a door closing. “Chase? Geez, you have to stop calling me every ten minutes. People are going to get suspicious.”
Chase grimaced.
“Yeah, sorry. You got anything for me?”
“No, nothing. I have to… well, I told you. I have to be careful where I look. If Rhodes does a simple back search, he’s gonna figure out what I’ve been doing.”
“’Kay. Just let me know
as soon as you find something—anything. Anything in Dr. Edison Larringer’s background that is interesting, okay? Shit, you know what? If you find anything about Eddie, let me know.”
“Will do,” Dunbar said before signing off.
Chase hung up the phone and raised her eyes to the other desk, ready to say something to Drake, before remembering that it was still empty.
Tap, tap, tap.
Eddie got close, and that’s why he ended up dead, Chase thought. And if he got close, then so can I. It’s just a matter of retracing his steps, starting with where he had found the photographs, starting with Beckett’s office.
Chase stood and started to put on her trench coat, when her phone buzzed on her desk. She grabbed it and answered with one arm still hanging out of her jacket.
“Dunbar? You find anything?”
“Uh, Detective Adams? It’s Detective Yasiv.”
“Oh, shit, sorry. What’s up?”
“Well, we’ve got a strange situation here. There’s been an accident; a tow truck driver’s dead.”
Chase’s eyes immediately narrowed and she sat at her desk, instinctively opening the folder of photographs from the forensic pathology course.
Please, not another one.
“Yeah? And why is it strange? How’d he die?”
Chase heard Henry Yasiv swallow hard.
“It looks like… it looks like he was electrocuted. I mean, the cables are still hooked up to his tow truck battery, but the strange thing is, there’s no other car on the scene. I mean, there’s nothing out here but weeds and allergies. Nothing—Chase? You still there?”
Chase knew that Detective Yasiv was speaking to her, but she wasn’t hearing any of his words.
Instead, her eyes were locked on the sixth photograph from the exam.
The one that showed a man with a silver-dollar-sized burn mark on his neck, and another on his shoulder.
There was a single word printed on the top of the image: ELECTROCUTION.
Their killer had struck again. Only this time, it looked like he got sloppy.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 44