And the eighth… Clay Cuthbert was the eighth victim.
Yasiv swallowed hard.
But Peter Kellington… Peter Kellington was the Skeleton King, and he’s rotting in the ground.
Which meant that the body laid out on the pool table was the work of a copycat.
Yasiv took a heavy drag of his cigarette, and then pinched the bridge of his nose.
Body… it’s not just a body. It’s fucking Detective Simmons. Christ, Yasiv, it’s one of your men.
He shuddered and it was all he could do to fight back tears. Instead of crying, Yasiv pulled hard on his cigarette, so hard that he got head buzz.
He had first worked with Detective Simmons way back on the Butterfly Killer case, and while Yasiv fell short of calling the man his friend, he had helped him cut his teeth in the business. It had been Simmons, in fact, who had suggested that he apply for Sergeant after Chase Adams vacated the post.
Yasiv had chuckled at the prospect, but with continued ‘encouragement’ he had reluctantly applied. He didn’t have the experience, he didn’t have the influence, and he definitely lacked the high-profile clout of some of the other applicants.
Which was why, after a series of interviews, when he’d been offered the job, he thought it was all a joke, a fucked up reality TV series; LIVE PD, Punk’d version.
But Simmons’s skeleton in the house behind him was no joke.
In the distance, Yasiv saw a cream-colored Crown Vic try to weave through the police barricade. A uniformed officer stepped in front of the vehicle, and there was a heated exchange of sorts. Yasiv flicked the cigarette butt and hurried down the steps.
“Let him through,” he shouted. “Let him through! Come on!”
The officer glanced at him and Yasiv nodded. Satisfied, the policeman took one step back and the Crown Vic lurched forward, nearly clipping him on the way by. The car eventually screeched to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and Drake leaped out.
His eyes were blazing, and his mouth, partially hidden by a beard, was twisted into a sneer.
“This better not be some kind of sick joke, Henry. Because if it is, I swear to God—”
Sergeant Yasiv took a cautious step back up the stairs.
“I wish… fuck, I wish this was a joke, Drake.”
Drake’s face twisted then, and Yasiv knew that the man, short-tempered on his best day, was primed to blow at any moment.
Yasiv sighed, and Drake surprised him by reaching over and laying a hand on his shoulder.
He shook his head.
“We… we’re going to need you on this one, Drake.”
Drake’s hand slipped away and he hurried up the steps and into the house.
Sergeant Henry Yasiv followed.
Chapter 18
“Simmons,” Drake muttered as he made his way toward the back of the house. “You’re sure it’s him? You’re sure it’s Simmons?”
“We can’t be a hundred percent sure,” Yasiv replied hesitantly. “He’s just bones, Drake. But it’s his belt, I’m positive of that. And no one can get a hold of him.”
Drake clenched his jaw.
He couldn’t believe it; he couldn’t believe that after all this time, the Skeleton King had returned.
Everything had been going so well, everything was falling into place.
For once in his life, Drake was actually happy.
And now this.
He felt the inside of his sport coat pocket, his fingers tracing the familiar outline of the mickey. He had sipped on it on the way over from Jasmine’s, but now, being at the scene and confirming that it wasn’t a gag, he wished he had sampled more.
Drake just couldn’t believe that the King was back, despite how adamant he’d been that Peter Kellington was not their guy.
Time seemed to slow as Drake approached the pool table, and the people that surrounded it, the men in the white suits that hovered over the skeleton, suddenly faded into the background. After a few moments, it was only him, Damien Drake, and the skeleton.
He was suddenly transported back in time, to when he’d discovered the King’s penultimate victim before Clay Cuthbert, the one who they had never been able to identify. That skeleton had six finger bones cemented to his skull, with space for just one more.
Space for Clay Cuthbert’s finger. After finding nothing, not a shred of evidence at the other crime scenes, they’d lucked out and found a hair stuck to the femur of the seventh victim. A hair that belonged to Peter Kellington. This had been enough to secure a wiretap, which had led to a search warrant.
And then it had all culminated on that rainy night, in Clay’s death, in Drake shooting and killing Peter Kellington on the stairs of his home.
But there was more to it… there was someone else there, Drake recalled. A dark shadow in the doorway, someone who had rolled the bone between his legs, distracting him just long enough for Peter to shoot Clay.
The same bone that had been lost in evidence, but had somehow made its way back into Drake’s possession.
But then I lost the damn thing while doing Ken Smith’s dirty work.
Drake leaned over the skull, marveling in morbid fascination at the smoothness of it, the fact that it was completely devoid of flesh or sinew, as if it had been lying on the table for a hundred years instead of just several hours.
Drake shook his head, and the people around the pool table reappeared.
“Whose place is this? It can’t be Simmons’s.”
Yasiv cleared his throat before answering. It was clear that the new sergeant was having a rough go of this. Drake didn’t blame him; he knew what it was like to lose a partner, someone close to him, a fellow brother in blue.
“No, this isn’t his address. As far as I can tell, no one lives here; it’s been staged. I’ve already got a couple of guys trying to track down the owner, but it might take some time. It appears that it’s owned by a holdings company of some sort and not an individual. ANGUIS Holdings, I think.”
Drake nodded as he observed the expensive looking light fixtures, the gilded frames surrounding oil paintings. The hardwood floor, the solid oak pool table.
“What about Dunbar? Dunbar can figure out—”
“Dunbar’s right beside you,” Yasiv informed him.
Drake, eyebrow raised, turned to his right, and noticed a chubby man with smooth features speaking to a CSU tech, notepad in hand.
Drake strode over to him.
“Detective Dunbar, is it?”
Dunbar lifted his blue eyes at the mention of his name, and they widened when he saw who it was.
“Drake! Drake, it’s nice to see you,” he said.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” Drake offered. He didn’t think that Dunbar had what it took to be a detective—he was too soft—but he was nevertheless happy for the man. And hell, it wouldn’t be the first time that he was proven wrong.
“Thank you,” Dunbar said. It was clear that he wanted to say more, to ask about Chase maybe, or Screech, or just see how Drake was doing, but he bit his tongue.
After an awkward silence, the man finally said, “Do you think it’s him? Do you think the Skeleton King is back?”
Drake opened his mouth to answer, but someone else spoke up first.
“I think you mean Peter Kellington—and no, he isn’t back. He’s dead. Drake can attest to that first hand.”
Drake turned to face the owner of this new voice, and was met by a tall, lean man with dark eyes and a smooth complexion. He had a manicured beard and jet-black hair that was neatly parted on one side.
“And how would you know what I can attest to?” Drake barked.
Sergeant Yasiv stepped between the two men and offered an introduction.
“Drake, this is Deputy Inspector Lewis Palmer. Lewis, this is…” Yasiv let his sentence trail off.
Drake extended his hand.
“I’m Special Consultant Damien Drake,” he said calmly. “And yes, Peter Kellington is dead, but the Skeleton King appear
s to be very much alive.”
Chapter 19
“The finger,” Drake said as he hovered over Simmons’s skeleton once more. “Find the person who’s missing the finger, and we’ll find the next victim.”
He stared down at the single phalange extending upward from the right side of the skull.
“CSU is already preparing to perform DNA analysis,” Deputy Inspector Palmer said. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and find a hair like we did with Peter Kellington.”
Drake chewed the inside of his lip and fought back a biting retort.
We?
Drake had no idea who this Deputy Inspector Palmer was, but he most definitely hadn’t been around when the Skeleton King first started his reign of terror.
“Probably just the work of a sick copycat,” Palmer muttered under his breath.
That was it; Drake snapped.
“Copycat? Really?”
Palmer pressed his lips together and he folded his arms across his chest.
“Only one bone on his skull,” Drake snapped. “We never told the media about the first victim, about the one bone.”
Palmer’s eyes darted first to Simmons’s hands and Drake followed his gaze. The final bones in all eight of the skeleton’s fingers were missing. While the media knew about the crown of bones, hence them coming up with the Skeleton King moniker, the sequence had never been made public. Victims two through six all had their own finger bone cemented to their skulls, as well as a bone from all previous victims and the next victim. While there was a space for an eighth bone on the seventh victim, it had been absent. The media had implied that Clay’s finger was supposed to be there, but Drake thought that was bullshit. The first victim, however, only had the next victim’s bone cemented to their skull, and not their own.
“Only one bone,” Drake reiterated. “And I would bet that it’s not Simmons’s.”
Palmer just shrugged.
“It could be his. Anyway, it wouldn’t be the first time information leaked to the media.”
Drake growled and saw red, but Yasiv quickly stepped in front of him before he could lash out.
“Drake, were all the victims found at a secondary location?”
“Yes,” he replied through gritted teeth. “And we never found the primary murder location for any of the victims.”
“What about cause of death?”
Drake shook his head.
“The bones were always intact, except for the missing fingers, with no sign of blunt force trauma. No evidence of poison in the bone marrow, either, but this was hardly conclusive. Only ruled out long-term poisoning.”
Even though Drake was answering Yasiv’s questions, his eyes remained locked on Palmer.
“What about your notes on the original Skeleton King case? You still have those?”
Drake pictured the box in the trunk of his Crown Vic, the box that he never went anywhere without.
He nodded.
“I think it’s best if maybe you come to the station and give us a reminder of what we’re up against,” Yasiv continued.
“I can be ready in as little as an hour,” Drake informed the sergeant.
Drake took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He still didn’t know who the hell this Palmer guy was, but he realized that making an enemy of the DI wouldn’t help him find the bastard who had done this to Simmons.
And Clay.
“Any idea when the last time someone saw Simmons alive was?” he asked.
“He was at work two days ago. That’s all I have for now, but I’ll check the log and the footage outside the precinct to be more precise. I’ll also check with his—” Yasiv’s voice hitched, and while he tried to mask this with a cough, Drake picked up on it. “—his wife. I’ll check with her.”
As this information sunk in, Drake observed the room again. Off to his left was a rack of pool cues, neatly arranged in their holsters, and below that were two wooden racks where the balls were supposed to go.
Only they weren’t there.
“You said this place is staged?”
“Sure looks that way,” Yasiv replied.
Drake turned his eyes back to the pool table, but CSU had already covered the lower half. He strode over to the closest man in a white suit and asked him to lift the tarp.
Yasiv appeared at his side, the DI nipping at his heels.
“What are you thinking?” Yasiv asked.
Drake didn’t reply right away; he just looked to the wall again where the billiard balls were supposed to be and then back at the table. His eyes drifted to the pockets and he was surprised to see a ball cradled in each one.
“That’s strange,” he said to himself. Again, he looked about the room, noticing that everything seemed to be meticulously placed. Everything except for the pool balls.
Ignoring Yasiv’s questions, Drake walked around the pool table and confirmed that each pocket only held a single ball. When he realized that there were two ‘6’ balls, his radar started to ping.
“Why is everything in this house staged so perfectly, except for the pool balls? And why the hell are there two ‘6’ balls?”
Yasiv snapped his fingers and a CSU tech hurried over.
“I want you to collect these balls and send them to the lab for testing. Anything—”
“No, I don’t think you find any evidence on them, but…” Drake began, circling the table once more. “This shouldn’t be like this.”
Drake took out his notepad and scribbled down the balls in clockwise order: 6, 6, 5, 8, 9, 1
“You think this is the killer’s doing? That he’s trying to tell us something?” Yasiv asked.
Drake shrugged.
“I have no idea. The Skeleton King has never sent us a message before, other than in the form of a body.”
Chapter 20
Drake sat in his Crown Vic outside 62nd precinct, staring blankly off into the night. His mind was as empty as his gaze, his thoughts on nothing and everything at the same time.
He absently reached into his pocket and pulled out the mickey of Johnny Walker Black. Without thinking, he unscrewed the cap and took a large gulp. Even before the liquid hit his stomach, he tilted the bottle and swallowed again.
He didn’t taste it. He didn’t feel the burn. Even the wetness went unnoticed.
He simply did it, because it was what he did.
Drake might have stayed there all night, if it hadn’t been for a knock on his window.
He startled and after taking one more sip of whiskey, he rolled down the window.
“Yeah?”
Yasiv looked at him with caring eyes.
“You going to be okay, Drake? I mean, I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to get involved with this. I just thought—”
Drake started to open the door and Yasiv stepped back.
“I have to do this,” he said simply. “I have to do this for Clay. Clay and Simmons.”
Yasiv knew enough not to keep talking. He followed Drake to his trunk, where he pulled out a box of files and together they made their way toward the precinct.
Drake liked Yasiv, always had, but their relationship had been superficial at best. He couldn’t help but think that they would be better off if it was Chase at his side and not Henry Yasiv.
His thoughts turned to their last conversation, the one initiated by Chase that had ended rather strangely. When they had first met, Chase had been full of piss and vinegar, but on that last call… she seemed different. Subdued, maybe. Or lonely.
Confused.
Drake shook his head. It was difficult enough working with Palmer hovering. Inviting the FBI onboard would be like tossing skittles into a daycare.
No, they would only call in the FBI if they absolutely had to, he decided.
Yasiv held the doors to the precinct open for him, and Drake stepped inside, squinting in the harsh incandescent lighting.
And then he made his way to the all too familiar conference room.
***
“
Seven days, seven victims,” Drake began, resisting the urge to refer to Clay as the eighth victim. “Each one discovered almost exactly twenty-four hours after the previous. We positively identified all the victims except for the seventh. Forensic analysis told us that all deaths were recent, although they couldn’t give us specifics. All of the bodies were found at different secondary locations in NYC. We were never able to find a concrete link between the victims or the locations, except for the fact that nobody reported the victims missing before we found their skeletons.”
As Drake paused to catch his breath, one of the younger officers in the room spoke up.
“Sorry to interrupt, Drake, but wasn’t there a hair found on the seventh skeleton?”
Drake took a sip of his coffee before answering.
“Yes; we found a hair stuck to the femur that belonged to Peter Kellington, a janitor at a local high school who had previous allegations, and one conviction, for being a peeping Tom.”
“Yeah, but he’s dead, isn’t he?”
Drake frowned and thought back to that rainy night, to sitting in the car with Clay, complaining about how useless this lead was, how it was just a red herring to take them off the track of the real killer.
He swallowed hard.
“Peter Kellington is dead. I shot him.”
“So, this has got to be the work of a copycat, right?”
Drake glanced over at DI Palmer and wasn’t surprised to see that the man was smiling.
“Right now, we are considering it as such,” Palmer said, stepping forward. “DNA has confirmed that the finger bone cemented to Simmons’s skull does not belong to him. We have to assume that it belongs to the next victim.”
Drake scowled.
“The bodies showed up a day apart, but we don’t know when they were abducted,” Drake added. “Let’s proceed on the assumption that our killer already has the next victim, but not the subsequent ones.”
“Proceed on the assumption?” The young officer asked. “So, are you, like, leading this investigation, Drake?”
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 7