by Gregory Ashe
“Technically, they aren’t taking over the case. Technically, this is a joint effort. Technically, they’re advising the Wahredua PD and providing logistical support.”
“Technically?”
“Well, technically, they seem to think we couldn’t find our asses with both hands.”
“So, who are we supposed to be working with?”
“Senior Special Agent Park.”
“He sounds like an asshole.”
Somers grinned. “She might be; I don’t know yet.”
“Oh.”
“Internalized sexism, bro.”
“Dude, I had a really long night,” Dulac said, scrubbing his face, “and—” His hands froze; then they dropped. “Did you just call me bro?”
“Don’t get excited.”
“That was fucking incredible, dude.”
“Let’s not make too much of it.”
“This is the best day of my life.”
“Ok,” Somers said. “I only said it because you’re obviously having a rough start, and now I regret it.”
“I’m getting a tattoo of today’s date.”
Somers sighed and spread out the photos again.
“Probably on my bicep.”
“Here’s what we’ve got.”
“The right one, dude. Because it gets a little more swoll. And you deserve that.”
“Focus, please.”
As Dulac bent to look at the photographs, though, the boyish grin slid away, and he paled behind the maze of freckles. “Fuck me. Is that really Susan?”
“Yes. Her purse, with her driver’s license, was found by the body. We had to run fingerprints to confirm because, well, the damage to her face.”
Dulac looked a little green now, but he nodded, and his gaze didn’t waver. “And this asshole took Mitchell?”
“That’s what it looks like. We’ve got a couple of uniformed officers knocking on doors, trying to find anybody who might have seen Mitchell leave last night. We called some of his friends, including Nico, and nobody saw Mitchell last night. We’re also trying to pull footage from security cameras, traffic cams, you know the drill. Anything in the area that might help us figure out what happened.” Somers grabbed the computer mouse and wiggled it, more out of something to do than because he needed it. “It’s a lot of dead ends so far. No cameras in the apartment building itself, no cameras in the parking garage. They rushed a warrant to get access to the cloud backup of the feed from Mitchell’s security cameras, the ones inside his apartment. Gone. Erased. No backups.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dulac said, rocking back. “What a fucking shit show. How’s Hazard?”
Somers’s hand stilled, and then he gave the mouse a few more jiggles. “Not good.”
“Man,” Dulac said, resting a hand on Somers’s shoulder.
“Anyway, here’s what we know: Boyer estimates that Susan was killed between ten o’clock last night and midnight. A security guard patrols Sexten Industrial Park every two hours, or, at least, they’re supposed to. The guy who called this in, he started crying about five minutes into the conversation and told us that he just does one sweep, usually about halfway through his shift. He spotted Susan about half past twelve, got close enough to see, was violently sick, and then called it in.”
Dulac traced the edge of one photograph. “The lights. That’s new, right? He didn’t do it last time. So he wanted somebody to see her.”
“Definitely. Obviously, part of that was for his own benefit. We were all so busy with Susan that he was able to get Mitchell without risking a surprise check-in from Hazard. Hell, even if his plan had somehow gone wrong and Mitchell had managed to place a call to the police, everybody was at the industrial park. He bought himself a little security policy by making such a show of this killing. Hazard figured it out faster than anybody else, but . . .” Somers didn’t know how to finish that sentence; in his mind, he saw Hazard after they had left Mitchell’s apartment to be processed by the crime scene techs: the ghastly pallor, the black rings under his eyes.
“Dude, he can’t take this personally. If he takes it personally, it’s going to drive him out of his fucking mind.”
“Yeah,” Somers said, and then he had to rub his eyes hard and fast. “Well, you try telling him. Anyway, the lights weren’t the only new addition.” He slid a photograph toward Dulac.
“Is that a snake?”
“Yeah, a rubber one. The kind kids might buy at a zoo gift store, you know? Or maybe you buy it for a prank.”
“He’s got it wrapped around her leg. What the hell is that about?”
“Part of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Eurydice is running away from a beekeeper when a snake bites her, and she dies.”
After considering this for a moment, Dulac rocked back in his chair. “That’s some messed-up shit. What about the bees?”
“The same: he had the queen and her attendants trapped, and the swarm was trying to stay near. He also posed her the same way he did Phil: running, but looking back. He used stakes, which we think he must have put in place a day or two before. There’s no reason anybody would have noticed because the industrial park is abandoned, which is why he had to use the lights to draw the security guard’s attention, although I think—”
“Running where?”
“In the story, Eurydice is running away from a beekeeper; I told you—”
“No, bro. Where is Susan running?” Dulac shoved aside more photographs and grabbed the pencil-drawn crime scene layout. “She’s here, facing which direction.”
Somers turned the page in his hand and then tapped one side.
“What’s over there?”
They pulled up Google Maps, did some more twisting and turning of the page, holding up crime scene photos to coordinate.
“Straight at that fucking building, man. She’s running straight at the fucker. What’s in there?”
“No idea,” Somers said. “But remember, she’s looking back, she’s running away—”
“Yeah, I heard you. God, old people are so fucking repetitive. I’m saying, this guy staged everything. Lights, camera, action, you know? And he likes games. So why does he go to so much trouble to make it look like she’s heading here,” Dulac tapped the screen, “when he could have done this somewhere else. Like her house, you know? Why go to all this trouble? He picked the last place because it represented a fuck you to the law. Why this place?”
Blinking, Somers rubbed his jaw.
“And he’s got a tight window to do it,” Dulac said. “At the very earliest, she’s dead by ten. That barely gives him two hours to transport the body, making sure nobody sees him and nobody follows him, and then to stage Susan like this. That’s not a lot of time, bro. He’s doing this for a reason, picked this place for a reason.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Somers said slowly. “It’s a good point—”
“It’s a fucking badass point. It’s a fucking Emery-Hazard-level fucktastic point.”
“—but serial killers, even they don’t always understand their rituals. He might not have been making a conscious choice.”
“But we need to check,” Dulac said.
“But we need to check,” Somers said. “I’d also like to get a look at Susan’s apartment. And talk to neighbors, coworkers, anybody who might have noticed something unusual in her life.”
“Dude, you’re ancient. Your brain is slipping. We’ve got to start with Wesley, right? I mean, if anything had been going on with Susan, he would know.”
Somers’s eyes cut toward the door to the interview room.
“I’m going to let you slide, bro, because you were up all night and your fuck-old body can’t keep up.”
Somers shook his head and began gathering up the photographs.
“What?” Dulac said.
“What do you think?”
“Dude,” Dulac said, his eyes dragged toward the interview room. “No way.”
“He’s the romantic partner. You know they’re always the first place we start.”
“Yeah, but, he’s like . . . Wesley.”
“They picked him up first thing. Riggle went at him pretty hard until he asked for a lawyer.”
“Riggle’s an asshole,” Dulac said.
“I thought he was your new silver-fox daddy.”
“He’s a total asshole. If he honestly thinks Wesley could—”
“He does think that. And I don’t blame him, not entirely. Wesley’s history isn’t exactly spotless, ok? Drug abuse, living on the street, mental illness. I bet we’ll find some violence if we dig deep enough.”
“Yeah, but that’s—”
“And he’s got a lot going against him besides: he’s relatively new to town, and he moved here just before the Keeper’s first killings. He has a personal connection to the most recent victim. If we’re right, and the Keeper has fixated on Hazard for some reason, well . . . Wesley and Hazard haven’t exactly had smooth sailing between them.”
“Dude,” Dulac said, seeming to struggle for words. “He’s Wesley.”
“And he’s trans.”
“Dude.”
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t think Riggle will care about that.”
After a moment, Dulac glanced away, tugging on his collar. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There’s no way Wesley did this. No way.”
“Whoever took Mitchell,” Somers said, pausing for breath because it was hard to say, almost as hard as thinking it, “we think Mitchell knew him. Trusted him.”
“You’re saying the Keeper of Bees, he’s somebody we know? Somebody, like, we interact with?”
Somers dragged fingers through his hair and shrugged.
“Fuck,” Dulac said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The door to the interview room opened, and Aniya Thompson stuck her head out; her beaded braids clicked together as she scanned the bullpen. Thompson was a local lawyer, and from what Somers had seen, a very talented one. Wesley had hired her to defend him in a previous case, and she’d handed the Wahredua PD their collective asses.
“Detective Somerset,” she said, “my client is ready to talk to you.”
“I’ll get the chief,” Somers said. “He wanted to handle this.”
“No,” Thompson said. “You, Detective. Wesley will only talk to you.”
CHAPTER NINE
JULY 2
TUESDAY
9:06 AM
ABSOLUTELY NOT,” RIGGLE SAID, standing in the doorway to his office. He had his hands braced on the jambs like he meant to launch himself toward the interview room, and to hell with whatever was in his way.
Somers was one of the things in his way.
Dulac was another.
“Chief, like, he will only talk to Somers, so—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Riggle said. “This is my station. This is my department. I say who that fucker talks to.”
“Right, totally, but—”
“Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth. How old are you? Twenty? For the love of fuck, son, if I have to tell you to be quiet again, I will whip your fucking ass and stand you in the corner.”
Dulac’s cheeks were bright red.
“Chief,” Somers said.
“And one more thing,” Riggle said, still to Dulac. “If I ever hear you use that fucking nickname again, you’ll be walking a beat faster than you can jerk your little boyfriends off. This is a fucking police department, not the fucking junior high boys’ locker room. Is that perfectly fucking clear?”
“Yes,” Dulac said, his posture stiff, his chin high. “Sir.”
“Get the fuck out of here so I can talk to Detective Somerset.”
Dulac shot Somers a look and slunk back toward the bullpen.
“Well,” Riggle said. “You’ve got something to say. Say it.”
“Detective Dulac is good police, Chief.”
With a grunt, Riggle looked past Somers at the interview room. “This isn’t kiddie care. If his little feelings got hurt, he can get his mom to give him a hug and tell him he’s special. Jesus fuck. Who the fuck made this little fucker think he could pick and choose who he can talk to? What a fucking disaster; I’m going to spend the rest of my day breaking that fucker down.”
Somers opened his mouth to say something about Wesley, but what came out was, “Chief, the way you talked to Detective Dulac, that goes through a department fast. I know you’ve got your own way of handling things, but it’s a stressful time, and—”
“And I’m supposed to hold his hand? He’s an adult, Detective. If he can’t handle getting his ass handed to him when he fucks up, he needs another line of work.”
“The women and men in this department have a lot of loyalty to each other. Even Dulac. A little goes a long way, Chief.”
Riggle’s gaze moved back to Somers. “Maybe you didn’t catch this the first time, Detective Somerset: my job is to be chief. Your job, on top of being a detective, is to make sure this department transitions smoothly to my leadership. That’s what your father promised me. Do you have any questions about that?”
“Chief—”
“I don’t know what’s going on in this fucking town. Do all of you have hearing problems?”
Somers bit the inside of his cheek again; the only sound he could hear was the burble of the coffeemaker, running on and on. How much coffee were they making? A barrel of it?
“No, Chief.”
Riggle grunted. Some of the tension eased in his shoulders. “It’s a fucking bad precedent, letting a perp dictate like this.”
“You’re in charge of this, sir. You can give him what he wants, and maybe we move forward with this case. Or you can tell him to take a flying leap. You’re the boss.”
The burbling slowed to a drip-drip-drip.
“Fine,” Riggle said, “if that fucker will only talk to you, let the fucker have what he wants.”
“I’d like Detective Dulac in there with me.”
Making a disgusted noise, Riggle waved a hand and moved toward the observation area attached to the interview room. Somers let the chief gain a couple yards of distance, and then he turned and waved at Dulac. Red still stained the younger detective’s cheeks, and his posture was stiff as he joined Somers.
“That was really shitty,” Somers said.
“Yeah, bro.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dulac shook his head. “Come on, we’ve got an interview.”
When they stepped into the room, Somers knew they’d made a mistake. Wesley looked terrible: his ginger quiff was sagging to one side, his face was waxy, and he must have dressed in the dark or in a blind frenzy, because he was wearing a red velour jacket with a pink, candy-cane-stripe button down. It even had pink piping along the collar and the cuffs. Aniya Thompson sat at his side, her hand on his arm, and even the hardened lawyer’s eyes had a pink tinge.
Wesley had obviously been crying, and his voice was rough as he said, “Is she really dead? Is Susan really dead?”
“I’m sorry,” Somers said. “Yes. She is. I’m so sorry, Wesley.”
Instead of more sobs, though, Wesley straightened in the chair, dashing at his eyes. “Oh my God. This isn’t possible, right? This is totally impossible. I just saw her. John-Henry, you were with us on Sunday. You saw us. We were—everything was fine.”
Dropping into a chair, Somers folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Wesley, I need you to think really carefully. Everything is going to move fast now. I’m going to ask you some questions you won’t like. Are you ready?”
Wesley nodded.
“You’ve been informed of your rights?”
Another nod, but this time, Wesley glanced at Thompson. She nodded in confirmation.
“This is a mistake, right?” Wesley said. “I’m not under arrest. I can’t be. I didn’t do anything.”
“Do you understand your rights?”
“Did you kill Susan Morrison?”
Wesley ran the heel of one hand under his eyes and looked away. “This is unbelievable.”
“Wesley, did you kill Susan Morrison?”
“No.”
“Were you involved in any way in the killing of Susan Morrison?”
“No. God. Of course not.”
“Did you have any part in transporting Susan Morrison’s remains?”
“They moved her? Mother of Christ, where? What happened?”
“Wesley, please.”
“No. I didn’t have anything to do with this. I don’t know anything about it. I barely even know Susan’s dead, and that’s because they woke me up and dragged me out of bed to tell me, and then they arrested me, and now I’m here. John-Henry, you know me. I’ve been to your house. I’ve watched your little girl. You can’t possibly believe I had anything to do with this.”
“Where were you last night?”
“What?”
“Last night.”
“I had dinner with some parishioners—the Lindauers, Chris and Anne. Do you know them?”
“What time?”
“Six.” Wesley glanced at Thompson again; the lawyer nodded.
“Until?” Somers asked.
“Eight.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Another glance at Thompson. “The Lindauers put their kids to bed at eight. I left right around then. You can check.”
Somers nodded. “And after that?”
“It was a Monday night. I went home.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“No, I was alone.”
“We believe Mr. Wesley’s phone and internet records will corroborate his location,” Thompson said. “I’ll be working with his providers to get that information.”
“That would help,” Somers said.
“Easy to fake,” Dulac said. “Leave your phone at home. Access the computer remotely. Make it look like you’re in the house, reading Mother Jones, when really you could be anywhere else.”
“Gray,” Wesley said in a tone of wounded shock.
“As a reminder,” Thompson said, “the burden of proof is on the state. My client was home; he says he was home. If you have reason to believe he wasn’t, we’ll be happy to hear it.”