by Tes Hilaire
Melissa shrugged. “Can’t tell for sure since the body is half buried in trash, but judging simply by the location?”
“Christ, Jessica, what happened to you?” Mike exclaimed, drawing another handful of stares. Even Melissa dragged her eagle-eyed focus away from the Dumpster to look at her. The ME’s eyes widened, and she whistled.
“Wow, purdy.”
“It’s noth—” Jessica flinched as Mike’s hand closed around her chin, turning her face to the side to get a better look at the angry looking scratches on her cheek. At least she’d managed to cover the bruise to her temple.
“Jesus.” He fingered her temple, sending off shots of pain beneath her skin across her forehead and scalp.
Okay, so the bruise might be hidden, but she guessed the lump wasn’t. She reached up, slapping at his hand. “Stop prodding it, will you?”
He glared at her and crossed his arms across his chest. “Well?”
“Well what?”
Jessica’s skin itched as her guilt levels spiked. Mike was concerned, and she was being a bitch. But she really didn’t want to get into what happened. Especially with others around. Nope, her stupidity was something she’d like to keep private, thank you very much. She shrugged. “Just a little mishap. Nothing big.”
“A mishap? What kind? Hit and run?”
“Yeah, you know those evening commuters.”
The skin around his eyes crinkled, his gaze narrowing. She was beginning to think the impending shake down and lecture might be unavoidable when someone whistled, drawing their attention.
“We’re going to have to remove the body to finish collecting evidence from the Dumpster. You want to get in here first?” one of the members of the CSU team asked them.
“Hell, yeah,” Melissa said, boots clicking on the pavement. Mike gave Jessica a look that said, “We’ll talk about this later,” and fell in beside her. They moved forward as the rest of the team moved back to the edge of the scene, taking a breather. Not that there could really be one, the smell of death already clogged the alley, though it was definitely worse next to the Dumpster. Jessica was tall, but she still had to lift onto her tip toes to get a good view inside. She didn’t even realize her gut had clenched up until the knots eased, allowing her to swallow. Not Grim. The body was beaten to a pulp, the limbs at odd angles, dried blood coating the fabric, but even though the face wasn’t visible this man was Caucasian and Grim was not.
“Did you do a preliminary time of death yet?” she asked Melissa, hoping against hope the ME would say last night or early this morning.
“No. But judging by the bloating and the smell? I’d say more than a day.”
Jessica swore. The coincidence that it was this alley, fewer than forty-eight hours after her botched meet and greet, was too much. Even with the garbage, she should have been able to smell a dead body rotting in the Dumpster—unless it was a fresh dead body. Which meant it was more than likely that this was the informant Grim had been trying to set her up with.
Damn, damn, damn. Of all the luck. Why her? And where the heck was Grim?
A hand touched her arm, drawing her back. Jessica turned to look into Mike’s baby-blue eyes, his stare accusing. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
Time to pay the piper.
She stretched her neck. One way, then the other. “I, uh, may have a lead on who our victim is.”
Mike sucked in a breath, glancing briefly at the Dumpster before returning his gaze to her. “How?”
Jessica sighed, nodding to Mike to step further away. She’d seen enough and wanted Melissa to do her thing and get them the details they needed.
“It could be coincidence, but there’s a good chance I was supposed to meet the man in there.”
“When? Why?”
“Two nights ago. Well, a day and a half really. It was more of an early morning meeting.”
Mike’s lips thinned, but he didn’t say anything, rolling his hand to indicate she should go on.
“One of my snitches who knew I was looking for leads on Thomas Rhodes claimed to know someone who knew something about Tom’s death. He was really spooked, though. Insisted on just me and the super secret meeting spot.”
Mike shook his head. “Who was it?”
“Not was. Is.” She glanced at the Dumpster. “Anyway Grim—my snitch—set me up to meet the guy. Grim was just going to show long enough to make introductions.”
“Not much blood other than on the body.” He lifted and dropped his shoulders. “Probably dumped.”
She nodded, but she’d wait for the ME’s and CSU’s report before she decided one way or the other and then take it from there. “Anyway, presuming our victim is the informant Grim was setting me up with, then he supposedly had some intel for me on Thomas Rhodes.”
“What kind of intel?”
“What offed Tom kind of intel.”
Mike folded his arms, looking back at the Dumpster. “Huh. You think he really had something?”
“Grim is usually reliable.”
Melissa scrambled down from her precarious perch on the Dumpster. She waved at a couple of her techs and they ran over with a stretcher, body bag unzipped and on top. Mike and Jessica were silent as they watched Melissa’s team pull the body and stuff it into the black bag and roll it out of the way for CSU to get to work on the contents of the Dumpster itself.
“Come on,” Jessica jerked her head toward where Melissa was bending over the stretcher. Mike followed with a sigh. Jessica couldn’t blame him. Smelling the body in the Dumpster would be bad enough. Seeing the full extent of the damage up close and personal? Not a job anyone enjoyed. But if doing so was a way to take the criminals off the streets, then she’d suck down as many breakfasts as she had to—not that she’d had one that morning. Damn, those omelets had smelled good.
Don’t think about it, Jess. Or him. Definitely not him.
“Anything interesting?” she asked Melissa when they were close.
Melissa glanced at them absently, motioning them to get closer. Not a good idea. Jessica may not have had breakfast but the pulverized face that stared back at her was porcelain-goddess-worthy anyway.
“Nice,” Mike said, his face as green as hers felt.
“And positively screaming his life story at me too,” Melissa put in excitedly, obviously not at all phased by the sight.
“How so?” Jessica sucked back down the bile to ask.
“See these scars?” Melissa pointed to some scarring around the throat. Jessica and Mike bent closer as they tried to pick out the marks against the bloated and bruised skin. To Jessica it didn’t look like anything but a mess of old scarring.
“What is that?”
“If I had to guess? Bite marks.”
Her head jerked up. “Bite marks. Like a dog?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“Not sure, but the other side is even better.” Melissa pressed her latex gloved fingers against the side of the corpse’s head, forcing it the other way so the left side of the neck was better exposed. “See this?” The ME pressed two fingers against the scarred flesh on that side, pointing out two spots where the scarring was thickest, then slid her fingers slightly lower and pointed out another couple of scabbed-over puncture wounds, two twin trails dried blood coming out from them. “And this?”
Jessica nodded, a tug of a memory drifting in and out of her mind before she could grasp it. Something about the partly scabbed wounds did look familiar. Like she’d seen a similar wound recently. Like maybe on…Logan?
She shook the thought off, forcing herself to concentrate on what the ME was saying.
“Both this newer one and the older ones were formed the same way.” Melissa’s fingers moved back to the older scarring. “If you can get past the laye
rs of scarring and recent bruising you can see these pairings on both sides of the neck. This is where the canines sunk in; the rest of the scarring, which isn’t as thick, is minor tear wounds.”
A chill ran down Jessica’s spine, making her shiver. Bite wounds. Punctures, scraped and torn flesh. What was it Grim had been spouting? Something about this guy knowing about shit that would make your hair stand on end. Paranormal crap like vampires. Creatures with sharp canines and superhuman strength. Maybe even claws? Claws that might match the strange puncture wounds she’d found under her bandages?
She rubbed her arm. Has to be another explanation. Those men last night had been strong and fast but then again, she’d been damn tired.
She shifted, indicating to Mike that he should take over. Hopefully, he thought she was letting him take the lead because she was mulling things over, not because she was mentally freaking out.
“So…punctures and tearing,” Mike drawled. “Wouldn’t that indicate some sort of animal? Like, you know, a dog?”
The ME shook her head. “I’ve seen scars from dog bites.” She fingered the punctures again. “These don’t strike me as that. Possibly another animal, but…”
“But what?” Mike pressed.
“Don’t laugh, but I think they’re fangs.” Melissa made a hissing noise, her mouth open as she used her two fingers to curl down like canines before her mouth. Jessica sucked in a breath, remembering the flash of the thug’s fucked-up teeth last night; her own momentary shock as Grim’s babblings leapt to the front of her thoughts, serving up a totally unreasonable explanation: vampires.
Not possible.
“Oh, come on,” Mike scoffed. “Fangs? As in vampires?”
“You seen some of the crap they’re doing with cosmetic dentistry recently?” Melissa asked him.
“You think a human did this?”
Melissa shrugged. “I’m just saying. There are some real wackos out there. Some people into some really freaky Goth shit.”
Jessica made some excuse and stepped away. For a few moments, she’d actually entertained the idea that the men she saw last night could have been vampires. But Melissa indicated their victim had been gnawed on not just once, but multiple times, to result in that sort of scarring. Which was asinine. No person, no matter what sort of freaky shit he was into, would lie there and willingly let someone gnaw on his neck—and come back for more. Obviously their ME had been watching way too much True Blood recently. And Jessica had been getting too little sleep. Oh, she didn’t doubt that Melissa was partially right. Their victim had obviously been attacked at one point by something with enlarged canines, but even if it was human, the poor fool must have been restrained during the freaky Goth-vampire bloodletting session.
Frankly, she didn’t know what was worse. To think there might be something to the paranormal crap Grim had been spouting, or to think that human beings would get so hooked on the idea that they’d alter themselves to live out some sick fantasy. And that somehow she had gotten dragged into the shit. Though fuck it, it might actually make finding their victim’s killer or killers easier. Simply go around NYC asking everyone to say “Ah” and then drag in everyone sporting pretty, sharp pointy canines. No biggie.
Yeah, right.
Sighing, she made her way to her Chevy and leaned against the hood. She scrubbed a shaky hand over her face, blinking through her blurry vision at the street before her. On top of the aches and pains from her encounter last night, on top of the perpetual exhaustion, the damn headache had returned. She knew why, of course, and it had little to do with her momentary slip into fantasy land. It was because she was here, staring at the same street she must have driven back home on the other night, and couldn’t remember a fucking thing. If this kept up she was going to have to get a damn MRI to find out what the hell was wrong with her fucking mind. Had she actually witnessed something and couldn’t remember? Was the key to their victim’s killer locked up in her foggy brain?
“I’m a mess,” she grumbled.
“Yeah, you are.”
She jumped, spun, and had to force her fisted hand back down to her side as she came face to face with her partner. “Damn it, Mike. Don’t sneak up on me.”
“I didn’t. Stomped like a damn elephant all the way from the alley over here.”
She made a noise along the lines of a grunt and leaned back against the dented hood of her Chevy. Mike took up position beside her, arms and ankles crossed in a deceptively relaxed pose, but she didn’t miss the scowl as he scanned the vivid abrasions on her face.
And here it came. The lecture.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” he asked.
“Actually, a fair amount.” Granted she’d been knocked unconscious, but that counted, right?
“Uh-huh. And did you see a doctor for that bump on your head?”
“It’s noth—”
“Nothing. Right. You already said that.” Mike fell silent as he began a series of long deep breaths. As if he were silently counting to ten—multiple times. However long it was, it was enough time to gnaw a huge chunk in her determination to stonewall. Mike didn’t deserve it. He was a good cop. She liked him and she wasn’t exactly a people person. But like him or not, she wasn’t about to go all crybaby on his shoulder over a bump on the head and a small chunk of missing time. That kind of revelation would land her first in the doctor’s office, which, okay, was maybe warranted, but then after, she’d be deposited in the department shrink’s office where she’d come away with nothing to show for it other than a shiny certificate of her mental incapacity and a leave of absence. Nope, not going to happen. Best answer to her personal problems? Get her shit together. Focus on her job.
She cleared her throat, forcing the strain out of her voice as she took on a professional tone. “I may have another lead. One that we can follow up on while waiting for Melissa’s report.”
Mike turned his head slightly toward her, his expression held in reserve. “Oh?”
“I think we should canvass the tenants in the apartment building with the jumpy concierge. See if anyone recognizes Thomas Rhodes and or his car.”
He shifted on the hood, turning his body toward her more. “Why? We were already there. They wouldn’t let us in.”
“Because I saw Tom’s Mustang parked in slot C-15 of the underground parking garage. Along with what appears to be a nice, crusty blood stain on the driver’s headrest.”
Mike’s eyebrows flew up. “How?”
“I just slipped in and saw the vehicle and peered through the windows.” She kept going before he could protest. “I didn’t touch it. But if we flash Tom’s picture and ask enough tenants about a certain red Mustang they’ll say they’ve seen it.”
Mike shook his head, letting out a string curses.
She talked over him. “We could have our warrant before lunchtime…” She glanced at her watch. “Well, a late lunch that is.” A really late lunch. Damn.
“Jesus.”
She narrowed her eyes, folding her arms. “Why are you so mad? We might have a lead.”
“I don’t care about the damn lead. Why didn’t you call me? When you dropped me off, you didn’t make one mention that you planned to go back out. Even if it was an impulsive kind of thing then, damn it, you could have at least called me after you saw the damn car.” His eyes widened, understanding dawning. “Wait. That’s when you got hurt, isn’t it? You didn’t call me because you were lying on the floor of the garage passed out with a fucking concussion?”
She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Definitely dangerous ground. “Not exactly.” She hedged.
“Not exactly?”
“It wasn’t that garage, and someone came along and helped out.”
“And you didn’t call me then?”
She opened her mouth, then clamped it s
hut. Angry with herself or not, she really didn’t want to go into the details of what happened. First of all, she still wasn’t one hundred percent clear on all of them, and second, she had a feeling that telling Mike that Mr. Logan Calhoun, their suspect’s best friend, was also her knight in shining armor last night would not go over well. Hell, it didn’t go over well with her, and she kissed the jerk. Talk about suspicious. Not to mention a major conflict of interest on her part.
Mike pushed off the car, pacing. “Christ, Jessica. I thought we were partners. You know, I’ve got your back you have mine? And now I find out you’ve been out two nights in a row without me? Without any sort of backup? And that you were fucking injured while doing it?”
Jessica rubbed her arm, the sharp ache of the multiple puncture wounds a pointed reminder of her fuck-up. “I admit, last night I could have used the backup.”
He ground to a halt, spinning on her. “But not the night before? Did you look in that fucking Dumpster? Did you not see the same body I did? What the hell do you think might’ve happened if you’d been there when they were stuffing that man in it?”
She remained silent. Really, what could she say to that? Um, actually, Mike, I’m not even sure if I was or wasn’t there. There was this really loud bang and then—without calling for backup—I got out of my car to investigate and I swear it felt like I was being watched. But I really don’t know since I don’t fucking remember much of anything after that.
Oh yeah. Not.
Mike took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he cracked his knuckles. When he opened them again he’d regained his cool, putting on the face she imagined he’d honed for working the streets. Cold, indifferent. It chilled her more than all the swearing, and her gut, which had still been churning after the alley, turned into a hard, frozen lump.
“I like you, Jessica. I really do. You’ve got heart, you’re a good cop, and you don’t take shit. But here’s the thing. I don’t take shit either. And I’m sick of yours.” He paused, letting that sink in. “Shape up. Work with me. Or find a new partner.”
He turned and stalked off toward his car. Jessica wavered for a few seconds, anger making her want to flip him off and get into her own car, but shame, that he was right, making her want to run after him and apologize.