“Evidence room? What the hell was he doing in there?” Drake asked.
Dunbar started to fiddle with his hands.
“Well, that’s the thing; I don’t know what he was doing in there. His name was on the logs, but the cameras in there were down until noon on Wednesday.”
Drake looked to Yasiv, who hesitated before making his way to the board.
Why would Simmons be in evidence on his day off? And the cameras… something’s not right here.
Yasiv scribbled, last seen Wednesday 7 o’clock, leaving 62nd precinct, beneath Simmons’s photograph.
“What about ANGUIS Holdings? Any idea who actually owns the building?”
Dunbar shook his head.
“It appears to be a shell company, I’m still trying to get to the source but it’s rerouted overseas. South America, probably. I’ll keep digging.”
Yasiv found a blank spot on the board and wrote, in large letters, ANGUIS HOLDINGS. Beneath that, he wrote, South America.
“Any update from the lab, any idea who the finger belongs to?”
“They’re still running tests,” Dunbar said.
“What about the bones themselves?”
Dunbar again shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Now it was Drake’s turn to speak up.
“I’ll talk to the ME as soon as we’re done here. Get them to put a rush on it.”
“Good,” Yasiv said. “Now Drake has been here all night setting up all the information he has on the other victims, and despite what I said yesterday, I’m hoping that we can find something… anything… that links them together.”
Several of the men nodded, but only one rose to his feet.
Officer Paul Kramer.
His lip was fat and he had a wad of tissue jammed in one nostril, but other than that, like Drake, he was no worse for wear.
“I—”
Yasiv instinctively stepped forward, coming between Drake and Kramer.
“Let me remind you, Officer Kramer, to keep it civil. I don’t give a shit about personal vendettas or feuds. All I care about is finding this guy.”
Kramer scowled.
“The only connection I see, is Clay—”
Drake balled his fists and prepared himself.
“—and Simmons.”
“What are you saying?” Drake seethed.
Kramer didn’t back down.
“Well, I don’t know if you know this, seeing as you’re not part of the police force, but both Clay and Frank were police officers. Detectives, in fact.”
Drake felt his anger rising, and did his best to stem it.
“Okay, Kramer. We get it,” Yasiv interjected, a frown on his face.
But Kramer apparently wasn’t done yet.
“And Simmons was also one of the first people to arrive at the scene, after… after Clay was murdered. He was the one who went back inside and found Peter Kellington’s body. So that links Clay to Simmons and Simmons to Kellington.”
Drake followed the man’s logic, but didn’t see any value in it.
“Thank you for that penetrating glimpse into the obvious,” Drake muttered, and Yasiv shot him a look.
“All right, okay, it’s something,” Yasiv said as he made his way back to the board.
“Yeah, it’s something. It’s a steaming pile of shit,” Drake said under his breath. He took a large swig of his spiked coffee, and wished that Yasiv had switched the ratio of booze to bean.
He was about to sit down, when another officer took up residence beside Kramer.
“Alice Monroe, victim number two, didn’t she get arrested before?”
Drake nodded.
“Yeah. If I remember correctly, she was arrested for a misdemeanor drug possession. Cocaine, I think.”
“Good, good,” Yasiv said. Drake turned around and watched as the man drew large lines connecting Alice Monroe to Clay and Frank and then to Peter Kellington.
“Dunbar, you want to dig into Alice’s arrest a bit? And check to see if any of the others had a criminal record.”
Dunbar nodded.
“Anyone else?” Yasiv asked the group.
One of the old guard raised his hand.
“Don’t know if it’s related, but one of my CI’s worked with her for years, says that there’s more dope on the streets than ever before. Flooded with it, driving prices down. Says she can’t remember heroin being so cheap. Started about a month ago.”
Yasiv took this in stride.
“Okay, okay. Any information is good information. Come to me right away if you hear anything that might be related. Even if you’re not sure.”
“What about Simmons’s cell phone? Can we track it?” a detective asked.
Dunbar shook his head.
“The SIM card was removed Wednesday mid-morning—probably shortly after he left the precinct. Can’t get anything useful from it,” he said. “Oh, before I forget, we’ve got nothing on the 911 call, either. Scrambled voice, untraceable number.”
There was a short pause and when it was evident that no other information was forthcoming, Yasiv clapped his hands together.
“Alright, let’s keep hunting. Give me something, guys. Give me something. Please.”
As the men cleared out of the room, Drake checked his watch and cringed.
Fifteen hours left. Fifteen hours until the next skeleton.
Chapter 25
“You sleeping or drunk?” Drake asked.
“I’m wide awake and stone cold sober,” Dr. Beckett Campbell answered. “But you never heard me say that before. What can I do for you, Drake?”
Drake switched the phone from one year to the other.
“Well, for starters, you can open the door.”
Drake watched Dr. Campbell spin around in his chair. Like Screech, Beckett looked tired, but at least he didn’t look as pale as he used to. The man stood, ran a hand through his short blond hair and quickly made his way to the door.
“Drake, how nice of you to visit,” Beckett said reaching forward and embracing Drake in a big hug. Drake awkwardly hugged the man back and then pushed him away.
“All right, enough of that. I see you’re back here, back at the old grind.”
Beckett shrugged.
“I’m back where I belong. This pasty skin doesn’t get along well with beach. What’s up?”
Drake followed Beckett into the man’s office.
“He’s back, Beckett. The King is back.”
Beckett raised an eyebrow as he took a seat at his computer and offered Drake the one beside him.
“I’m guessing we’re not talking about Elvis here, are we?”
“The Skeleton King has returned.”
Beckett shook his head.
“Fucking hell.”
“And he killed a police officer.”
“What?” Beckett said, his eyes bulging.
Drake nodded.
“It’s been a long fucking night, Beckett. But the worst part is that he has someone’s finger bone cemented to his skull, just like last time. Nobody told you about this? When the body came in?”
Beckett scowled.
“I’ve been relegated to bitch work until I can prove that I’m at my best behavior.”
He leaned over and started to type away at the computer, navigating through several password protected sites. Eventually, the image of Simmons’s skeleton appeared on the screen.
“That’s fucked up,” Beckett said under his breath.
“No kidding. I need to know how all the skin and flesh was removed, and anything you can tell me about where this might have taken place.”
Beckett turned to face Drake.
“Don’t even need to see the body to tell you that. Generally, there are three ways to get rid of tissue on bone,” he held up a finger. “One, cold water maceration, in which the body is left in water for a week or so until the skin can be easily peeled off. Remember the victim in Central Park? Washer woman hands? Well, stay submerged for even
longer, throw in some enzymatic laundry detergent, and you’ll end up with some easy peasy peeling. Two, hot-water maceration. The same as before, only this time, you’re essentially cooking the flesh. Imagine putting a rack of ribs in boiling water for twelve hours. Sure, the terrorists win, but you got yourself a fall-off-the-bone product. The third way is with a bug box. Basically, you get these nasty beetles called Dermestes and they gobble up all the skin and muscle and all that shit. Takes a while though, sometimes as long as a week. Best way to do it though if you asked me, less potential damage to the—”
Drake cut his friend off.
“Simmons has only been gone a day or two.”
Beckett nodded.
“Then I’d put my money on hot water maceration. Hold on, give me a sec.”
Beckett turned back to the computer and pulled up the image of the skull, and then made some rudimentary measurements with the software.
“Yeah, looks like the skull might have shrunk a little bit, which is a telltale sign that the body was boiled. There’s something else, though. See the way the bones white like that, Drake? Real bones aren’t like that. I mean they are, but you boil a body and they come out all yellow, dirty looking. After cooking it, your psycho killer must have used hydrogen peroxide solution to bleach the skull and the other bones.”
Drake wrote all this down in his notepad.
“How much would you need for that, given that all the bones are still attached?”
“Yeah, the tendons and ligaments are still mostly present, so he must have been very, very careful when he boiled it, and even more careful when he dunked it in hydrogen peroxide. He must have a big vat of it, something large enough to put the whole body in at one time. There doesn’t appear to be any degradation of the bones, so it looks like he just used the store-bought stuff, three to five percent, or something in that range.”
Again, Drake nodded and made note of his friend’s remarks.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
Beckett once again zoomed around the imaged, this time focusing on the finger bone.
“Yeah, your guy’s giving you the finger.”
Drake raised an eyebrow.
“What? What do you mean?”
Beckett shrugged.
“This is the metatarsal of the middle finger. Like I said, your guy’s giving you the finger.”
“Is he ever,” Drake said quietly. He was about to stand when on a whim, he turned to a particular page in his notepad and showed it to Beckett.
“You play pool?”
“I’ve been known to hustle a few, why?”
“Does this mean anything to you?” Drake asked, showing Beckett the photograph of the six pool balls.
Beckett looked it over.
“Other than stripes are fucked? No, can’t say I’ve ever played with two six balls.”
Drake closed the book.
“Thanks, Beckett. Really appreciate it. One more thing; any way you can put some pressure on the boys in the lab, see if they can speed up the DNA analysis on the finger?”
“I may be on double-secret probation, but that doesn’t mean I can’t boss around some of these entitled doctors. It’d be my pleasure.”
Chapter 26
The man preferred silence as he worked. He had tried listening to music, even tried whistling every once in a while, but the only thing this served to do was ruin his concentration.
He laid the plastic sheet down on the workbench, smoothing the edges as he did. Then he took out his toolkit and unrolled it. The scalpels within were impeccably clean, clean to the point of gleaming even in the poor lighting.
Satisfied, he walked over to the immersion tank, listening to the natural hum of the heater, and confirmed that the temperature was locked in at 90°. It was an opaque container, a tub with a lid that he had constructed out of wood and an old rain tarp. He checked the dial on the second immersion circulator, and confirmed that this also read 90°. Then he looked at the timer on the workbench. The body had been in the water for six hours now and it was time to check on it.
Knowing that he had to be quick to avoid too much evaporation, he lifted the corner of the lid and peered inside. The detergent and dissolved flesh had made the water frothy and he was unable to get a good look.
Donning thick rubber gloves that ran to his elbows, the man reached inside, gently feeling around the water for the body. When he felt resistance, he gently raised an object about the size of a bowling ball up and out of the water, dragging the rest of the skeleton with it.
The skull wasn’t completely clean. The eyes had dissolved away, as had the cheeks and lips. A vestigial nose remained, mostly comprised of cartilage that he would have to clean out later. The scalp had peeled back when he had picked up the skull, and he knew that with just a little effort, he could strip it all the way to the neck.
The man leaned down close, cognizant not to lift the entire body of the water, knowing that the enzymes had made the tendons weak and that the bones were apt to separate. He stared into the empty sockets that were once filled with eyes, but now only harbored a thick, white crust. He didn’t say anything as he looked, he only stared.
After a minute, the man nodded, and then lowered the body back into the water. He replaced the lid and then checked the heaters to make sure that they were still set to 90°.
“Another hour,” he said to himself. “Another hour, maybe two, and then you’ll be ready.”
Chapter 27
Screech couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He tried, he tried every single night, but every time he closed his eyes, he pictured the dead girls, and then recalled what he and Beckett had done to Donnie on the yacht.
What they had let happen.
He remembered the look in Beckett’s eyes as Donnie slipped below the surface of the water, his hand outstretched, pale, wrinkled, desperate for anyone to help him. Screech had reached over the railing, intending to grab the man’s hand, but Beckett had stopped him.
And then there was that look in his eyes… the cold look, the one that sent a shiver up Screech’s spine, even now, months later.
After Drake left, he flicked the computer monitor back on and scrolled to the images. His eyes locked on the picture of the crate of plastic packages filled with white powder, each one of them emblazoned with the snake eating the eyeball insignia. There must’ve been over five million dollars worth of dope in that boat, which was evidently why Bob Bumacher so desperately wanted it back. And why he had paid them so handsomely to get it.
Discretion… I was recommended to you guys because of your discretion, Bob had said the day they’d met.
He had tried to tell Drake what he’d found, what had happened, but Drake was having none of it.
He switched to the next image.
Behind one of the crates of heroin was a ball of duct tape. And on that duct tape were rust-colored stains that Screech knew could only be one thing: blood.
Screech couldn’t help but think about the two girls, the two dead models that had been found in Beckett’s room.
Was there another one? Another girl, one that Donnie had taken against her will?
Screech shook his head and flicked to the next image, but before it loaded, his cell phone on the desk started to buzz.
Screech’s eyes darted over to it and when he saw the number on the screen his heart sank.
Swallowing hard, his eyes locked on the photograph of Donnie’s submerged face, his lifeless eyes staring up, he answered it.
“Hello?” he said dryly.
The voice that answered had a thick Spanish accent, one that always grated Screech’s nerves.
“He wants to see you. He wants to see you now.”
Chapter 28
Drake rubbed his eyes and jammed his hands deep into his coat pockets. Without thinking, he found himself searching for the bone that Ivan had given him at Patty’s Diner what felt like a decade ago.
It wasn’t there, of course.
He’d
lost it. He’d lost it while setting up cameras to snoop for Ken Smith, to capture something to use to blackmail Dr. Gary Kildare.
To help Ken Smith become the Mayor of New York City. Which the man had accomplished, with little contest. Drake had gone back to the now abandoned warehouse that had served as the campaign headquarters for Dr. Kildare in search of that bone, but he’d never found it. At the time, he hadn’t thought much about where the bone had actually come from, which seemed strange to him now, but back then he’d been hurting so much from the death of his partner that he just needed something—anything—to remind him of what he’d done.
And the bone had served its purpose. Now, however, it might be a clue.
Exactly to what, he had no idea.
Drake walked slowly with his head held low. The city streets were bustling, as New York City streets tended to be at all times, but he didn’t really notice anyone. He just shuffled along, his mind locked on mental images of Detective Simmons’s skeleton, wondering what Clay might have looked like underneath his skin.
The phone in his pocket rattled against his fingers and he took it out to look at it.
It was Jasmine. Drake took a deep breath and waited for the call to go to voicemail. Then he dialed his voicemail number and listened.
“Drake? Drake, where were you last night? You didn’t come home. Look, I know things are a little overwhelming and that neither of us intended any of this, not really. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m nervous, too. But we should talk about this. Please, just come home. Or call me; at the very least, call me.”
Drake swallowed hard and deleted the message.
How could he call her? How could he call Jasmine and tell her that he’s working for the NYPD again trying to find the man who really killed her husband. Her real husband, Suzan’s father?
Maybe Kramer was right. Maybe this was a conflict of interest, maybe Drake’s whole fucking life was a conflict of interest.
He shook his head and put the phone back in his pocket and for the second time in less than ten minutes he found himself searching for that finger bone again.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 9