by CJ Lyons
He strolled up the hill, his pace steady and his breathing slow, almost hypnotic, an athlete preparing for a marathon. To Luka, this was the best metaphor for a homicide investigation, but it wasn’t only because of the endurance needed for the long race. It was also the frenzied chaos the trampling crowd caused as they surged forward once the starter’s gun released them. During his decade working violent crimes, he’d learned to slow down, ignore the urge to sprint, and instead, take the time to watch and listen. This was his last chance to observe the scene in a state as close to its pre-crime existence as possible.
As he walked, his gaze combing over the houses and the people who lived here, he kept his hands tucked deep in the pockets of his overcoat in an effort to keep them from growing numb before he’d need them to be nimble enough to take notes. Navy wool, the coat was cut in an old-fashioned English military style, giving him an air of authority while still allowing him to blend into the darkness and become invisible when he chose to. Two contradictory yet invaluable attributes of a homicide detective: a commanding presence and the ability to fade into the background.
As he observed the faces pressed against frosted windows and huddled against porch columns, Luka was certain that before tonight the calls from this block mainly concerned disputes over the limited street parking. This was an old-fashioned middle-class neighborhood with two churches anchoring the bottom of the hill and an elementary school at the top. Mature maples and sycamores old enough that their roots pushed up against the sidewalk towered over Tudor and Victorian style houses past their prime, a reflection of the entire city. Typical of many towns in the failing rustbelt, Cambria City was a paradox of rural and urban, old and new.
During the drive over from his grandparents’ farm across the river he’d gotten a report from the duty sergeant. Luka hoped he’d arrived before the brass contaminated both the scene and public opinion. With any luck, he’d see what he needed to see and be gone before he had to deal with them. He’d had a taste of administration duties after first becoming a sergeant, had fought to return to the investigative side of the department. Luka wasn’t a station house detective. He enjoyed being on the streets, watching the people and places and how they all fit together to tell their own unique stories.
Back when Luka worked arson, he’d solved as many cases by studying the crowd of bystanders as he had with other investigative tools. But tonight no one seemed abnormally interested in the tragedy playing out behind the now bright windows of the Wrights’ home. No one appeared out of place. No one putting themselves forward, ostensibly to help. Also no one lurking, trying to avoid attention even as they fixated on the object of their obsession.
The people observing the spectacle of crime scene activity reflected the neighborhood. Elderly couples clinging to each other, worried frowns creasing their features as they observed from behind thick leaded glass. Younger couples whose worry was trumped by curiosity that drove them onto their stoops for a better look. A handful of single men who crowded the police barricade, the glow of their e-cigs and cell phones punctuating the night. Given the number of scaffolds, yellow construction permits, and panel vans scattered up and down the block, he suspected they were looking to flip houses with “good bones.” Still, he needed to hear from each of them, so he was gratified when he spotted a woman almost as tall as he was, weaving through the crowd, taking notes. Naomi Harper, the youngest member of his team.
He sidled through the crowd, smiling inwardly at snatches of overheard conversation confirming his impression about the men congregated together—they were more concerned about what a violent crime would do to housing values than they cared about the man who’d been killed.
What did that say about Ian Wright? A man too busy to meet his neighbors? Or maybe Ian had had words with the house-flippers, complaining about noise or parking, the universal homeowner gripes in a quiet, well-established neighborhood like this. Luka allowed his imagination to roam freely, knowing that as soon as he made his presence officially known, he’d be faced with the reality of excavating the facts of Ian Wright’s life—the good and the bad. Homicide detectives couldn’t afford the luxury of never speaking ill of the dead.
Harper finished her survey of the crowd just as Luka approached the barricade. As the newest member of Luka’s team, Harper was the resident gopher, fetching coffee and taking night calls. She appeared even younger than her twenty-eight years with her long, bleached braids pulled back under a knit cap. It was her first homicide investigation, and Luka could see the light in her eyes and the flush of her cheeks.
She waited for him at the barricade, impatiently tapping her pen against her thigh, unable to mask her eager expression. She’d been on the force for six years and had her bachelor’s in criminal justice. When Luka met her on her first day with the squad and had been showing her the ropes, she’d hinted at trying law school—but she’d been nervous and gushing about a lot of things that he didn’t hold against her.
“Hey, boss,” she said, her voice pitched higher than usual. “Got a good one. Home invasion.”
Luka hid his smile—he wasn’t so old that he couldn’t still remember those days. In fact, he’d been a bit younger than Harper when he’d started on what was then called the Major Case Squad before it became simply Homicide and now, after yet another administrative scandal and departmental reshuffling, was reincarnated as the Violent Crimes Unit. Back then he’d been a lot like Harper—eager to learn, wanting to make himself useful, always hoping to be the one who found the clue that cracked a case.
He ducked under the crime scene tape, his coat flapping behind him as he strode forward. When he straightened, he pulled his hands free of the warmth of the wool and flexed his fingers. Time to get to work. “Home invasion? What makes you think that?”
She frowned, obviously disappointed in his lack of basic observational skills. “Actor entered through the back door, that’s why we’re staging out here,” she answered as if reassuring him that she had things handled despite his not seeing the full picture. “Homeowner fought back. Began in the kitchen, ended up in his kid’s room.”
Together they climbed the steps to the front porch. As Luka signed in with the patrol officer there, he scanned the list of who had already come and gone. The medical examiner’s team had entered only six minutes ago. Which meant the crime scene unit had finished processing the area around the body. Perfect timing. The CSU guys were great at collecting evidence and preserving the scene but terrible at answers this early on. But, depending on which death investigator the Coroner’s office had sent, they might give Luka some helpful early presumptions to work with. Case like this, anything helped.
He glanced over at the neighboring houses. “You’re thinking random?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“To start with, most home invasions aren’t totally random.” He bent to pull Tyvek booties over his Rockports. As Harper mirrored his actions, he noted that her chosen apparel for a past midnight callout was less fashion forward and more utilitarian: black Timberland boots, jeans, a dark green parka with ample pockets. He continued his didactic, “Houses for home invasions are typically chosen to provide the greatest and easiest return on investment.” He waved a hand, gesturing to the street.
Harper turned and stared past the crowd. It took her a moment, then she nodded. “Middle of the street, hemmed in by neighbors within shouting distance, harder to escape from as opposed to a house closer to an intersection.”
“Exactly.” The Wright residence was also a modest townhouse as opposed to one of the larger homes, so theoretically less valuables waited inside. And, given the number of elderly neighbors, why choose a younger, healthy, able-bodied couple’s house to rob, especially when it was obvious at least one adult was at home? “Even the violent, thrill-seeking home invaders, where monetary profit’s secondary, they still look for victims easily subdued and terrified. They aren’t interested in a fight; they want domination and subjugation.”
Ian Wrigh
t did not fit that profile. This was a man who’d fought back, desperate to save his daughter. Luka had no idea why Ian had been targeted, but part of him already respected and admired the man. He felt a pang deep inside; his own parents had died trying to save his little sister. Too bad they’d died for nothing.
As they crossed the threshold into the Wright home, a weight settled on his shoulders, accepting the burden that came with every case. Ian Wright, the facts of his life and the answers to his death, was now Luka’s responsibility.
“Tell me about the victim,” he asked Harper as he snapped on his gloves.
Without consulting her notes, she began the rundown. “Dr. Ian Wright, age forty-one—”
“Medical doctor?” he interrupted. The duty sergeant hadn’t clarified when he’d told Luka what little they knew about the victim and how he’d been killed. Instead, he’d spent most of their conversation defending the actions of the patrol officers who’d responded to the 911 call and who’d sent their two chief witnesses, the wife and daughter, to Good Samaritan before any detectives had arrived.
“No, that’s his wife. Works the ER at Good Sam. Husband is—was—a Ph.D,” Harper answered. “Professor of cyber security over at Cambria College.”
From the doorway Luka could see the dining room to his left and beyond it a glimpse of CSU techs working in the kitchen. Opposite the dining room was the staircase climbing to the second floor. Luka turned to survey the front room. The living room—or parlor, his grandmother would have called it with its large bay window and ornate fireplace. Except that, unlike the parlor at Gran’s, which was strictly off limits for children, saved for “company” only, this room actually appeared to be lived in. It wasn’t messy, but toys and children’s books gleefully mixed with tapestry pillows and silk throws. While the living room appeared undisturbed, both the dining room and steps had signs of a struggle that had progressed from one area to the next.
“Wright was a member of CERT—the national cyber emergency response team—and consulted for the government,” Harper continued her recitation.
“For who?”
“Who? You mean which government Wright worked for? Us. Our government.”
“Which government agency?” Luka finally stepped forward, still assessing the story the rooms told. From the photos arranged on the mantle and along the end tables, the Wrights had been a happy family, loving couple. He liked the way both husband and wife lit up around their daughter. And how they were touching and turned toward each other in every photo, no matter how candid. Couldn’t fake that kind of emotion.
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed that she’d already disappointed him. “All of them. Far as I can tell from the CERT website. HHS, CIA, NSA, Homeland, DOD, DOJ.”
“So smart, talented, and trusted with classified material.”
“Possible motive, then.”
He shrugged, not wanting to snap her enthusiasm, but also wanting her to proceed with caution. “Too early to tell. Right now, our focus is on collecting as many facts as possible—even if they are contradictory.”
She frowned at that. “But if they contradict each other, how do you know what the truth is?”
“Exactly.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs and crouched down. A bouquet of roses sprawled against the hardwood, petals radiating out as if they’d been thrown to the ground.
Harper rushed to explain, “Wife got them at work from the husband, brought them home with her. Card says there’s a surprise waiting for her at home.”
Luka grunted as he straightened. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the wife, panicked about her husband and daughter, making it halfway through the house before she realized she still held the flowers. He had first-hand experience of that kind of disjointed thinking—shock and awe distorting time, twisting logic as adrenaline took over. He kept his focus on the ground as if searching for clues, when really he was using the moment to force the image of Cherise’s body from his mind.
After a breath he looked up at Harper, who hadn’t noticed, too busy bustling around, making her own observations and judgments of the heart of the Wrights’ home. They climbed the steps following the path the CSU guys had laid, avoiding crime scene markers and the fingerprint powder staining the railing and walls. When they reached the top, Luka heard the whirl of a camera followed by a bright flash from the room at the far end. The door had a cheerfully lettered sign:
Emily’s Room.
“As you can see,” Harper said, indicating the damage along the walls of both sides of the corridor, “Wright fought back.”
More to the point, Luka thought, was that their actor hadn’t cut and run after being confronted. Instead, he seemed determined to outlast Ian Wright to get what he wanted. “Anything missing?”
Harper shrugged. “Wife said nothing obvious. Laptops, TVs, victim’s wallet all seem untouched.”
Making robbery less likely as a motive.
Cursing carried down the hall, making Luka smile. His favorite death investigator from the coroner’s office was on the case. Luka set off, following the sound. He’d start by viewing the body and its surroundings. Then he’d finish with the complete tour before heading over to the hospital where his witnesses and their stories waited.
“What the hell?” Maggie Chen stood in one corner of the pink and purple bedroom, yelling at a uniformed officer as she stared at his phone. “Who the fuck are you to mess with my body?”
Luka joined her, although his focus was on the corpse. Ian Wright. The man had put up one hell of a fight—it was rare to see a body this devastated from a homicide that wasn’t domestic in nature.
“Luka Jericho,” Maggie said, waving the phone in front of him so vigorously she threatened to jostle the protective hood free of her sky-blue hair. She was in her late twenties but fearlessly bossed everyone once she took control of a scene—Luka had once seen her outshout a watch commander at a gang shooting. The dead belonged to Maggie and she fiercely protected their right to justice—one of the reasons why she and Luka got along so well. Kindred spirits in many ways.
“Did you see what these clowns did to my crime scene?” She tapped the screen and a video began. Two officers filmed by a third, awkwardly scooting the bed out from the wall and lifting the mattress, almost but not quite dumping everything onto the poor dead man suffering in silence on the floor.
“What were we supposed to do?” the patrolman argued. “Let her and the girl wait under there all night?”
Luka kept watching as a macabre scene played out before his eyes. A woman clutching a child tight to her chest, climbing out from behind the bed with the help of the officers. The child appeared unharmed but was pale, whimpering, obviously in shock. The woman had blood smeared all over her hospital scrubs and fleece as well as her hands.
“No,” he told the officer even as Maggie was opening her mouth to ream the poor guy out. “No.” This was directed at the death investigator. Maggie shut her mouth, lips pressed tight, but surrendered the point with a quick nod. “You did right.” He jerked his chin to the door and handed the officer his phone back. “Get us copies for the file and give Harper your statement. Every detail.”
“Yes, sir.” Relief filled the man’s voice as he fled the room. Now it was just Maggie, Luka, and Ian Wright.
Maggie resumed her photography, meticulously documenting the scene, her movements still agitated. The CSU team had already photographed everything, but the ME always wanted their own images—something that had proven invaluable more than once when a case went to trial. Luka stayed out of her way, simply observing and waiting, and pretending to ignore her unending spew of curses.
When he’d first encountered her, he’d thought maybe she had Tourette’s. The swearing was relentless and unapologetic. But then he’d crossed paths with her at the scene of an obvious suicide—a man with terminal cancer—and instead of ranting and cursing, she’d sung a lullaby the entire time, the melody haunting him even after she’d packaged the body and driven away into
the rain.
After their first few cases together, Luka had asked Maggie about her on-scene outbursts. To his surprise, she’d laughed. “You think I’m unprofessional? Some over-wrought, over-emotional woman, right?”
“No, but—”
“It’s okay. That’s actually one of the reasons why I do it. When I started, I was often the only woman on a scene, plus I was young, no one took me seriously. After a few episodes suddenly the guys leave me space to do my job properly.” She gave him a wink. “No one messes with me now.”
“Gotcha. You said that’s one reason?”
She sobered, took a moment before answering. “What we do, there’s no way to avoid emotions. If I can get them out at the scene, then I do my job better and I can go home and sleep at night.” She shrugged. “My way of coping. Plus, I think it honors the dead. So many of us die alone, and then we become just another part of the system, a cog on a wheel, processed, catalogued, inventoried. It’s so impersonal. Don’t you think we all deserve better?”
Luka couldn’t help but agree and nodded, wishing he’d figured out a similar coping mechanism for himself.
Now he watched as Maggie finished with her photos. She crouched on her heels mere inches from the body and handed Luka her camera. He stowed it in her gear bag before joining her. She seemed more upset than he’d ever seen her before. He thought about the video, the mother and daughter. “You know her, don’t you? The wife? She’s a doctor?”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on the little girl’s bed with its matching ballerina sheets and mounds of stuffed animals. “What she did, to get to her daughter—”
“Tell me about her. Leah Wright.” At this early stage, any insights were helpful.