by Rick Reed
“Wedding date to be announced,” Eric said. “But that’s not why I’m here.” His smile faded and he was all business. “I understand you’re working a homicide.”
Pope looked surprised. “I got a call from Captain Franklin just minutes before you called, Eric. Is the media calling you?”
Eric shook his head. “I need to know what you’ve got.”
Pope still wasn’t sure where this was going. “Well, we’ve found some body parts of a white female. A head and an arm,” he said. “They’re still looking for the rest of the body.”
That confirmed Eric’s fears. “Where?”
“BFI landfill.”
“Identifiable?” Eric asked.
“Why are you so interested, Eric? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I have a missing employee—and under suspicious circumstances.”
“Just a minute.” Pope picked up his desk phone and dialed a number.
Eric heard enough of the conversation to assume that Pope was talking to someone at the county morgue. When the police chief replaced the receiver, he had a bemused grin on his face.
“That was Lilly Caskins,” Pope said. “I thought she might email us a photo of the head, but it seems we’ll have to drive to the morgue if we want any information.”
Eric was more than a little irritated by Lilly Caskins’s rudeness, but he said nothing. She wielded a lot of political power, but even she had her limits. She’d do well to remember that. Political loyalties swing to whoever is in power.
“You don’t have to go, Eric. I take it you want to verify the victim is or isn’t your employee.”
“I know it’s unusual for the prosecutor’s chief deputy to get involved this way,” Eric replied, “but we may have a personal interest in the identity of the victim. I just pray it’s not Nina.”
“We?” Pope asked.
“I’m sorry, I thought I told you. I’m here at Trent’s request.”
“He sent you on his behalf? Why?”
“You know how the game is played, Marlin. Trent was worried his personal presence would imply something he didn’t want to be implied. So I’m doing the legwork.” He knew Pope would understand.
“By the way, Eric, how did you find out about this?”
“Trent was made aware that Nina Parsons, one of our deputy prosecutors, didn’t show up this morning to do the weekend charging documents for tomorrow’s court.” Eric went on to explain. “As you know, when someone is arrested after regular court hours, a deputy prosecutor has to prepare affidavits and the ‘charging information’ for a judge to determine if the prisoner should be held over for court on Monday mornings.”
“Who reported Nina missing?” Pope asked.
“Cindy McCoy,” Eric said. “She was supposed to meet Nina at the office this morning. Nina was preparing Cindy to take over the weekend precharges. It had been Nina’s job until recently. Anyway, when Nina didn’t show up, Cindy called Nina’s home and cell phone. When she couldn’t reach Nina, she called Trent at home.”
Pope raised an eyebrow, and Eric explained. “She tried to call me first, but when I didn’t respond . . .”
“Because you were at your engagement party. That’s understandable.” Yet Pope surprised him by asking, “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions that the body at the landfill is Nina?”
Eric leaned forward in his chair. “Trent called me at Katie’s this afternoon to tell me Nina was missing from work. It was right after Jack left the party. I put two and two together, and . . . look, I may be wrong here, but I have another reason to believe it’s Nina.”
“I have the feeling you’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear,” Pope said.
Eric had finally worked around to the point he needed to make. “I may have screwed up, Marlin.”
CHAPTER SIX
Somewhere on the East Coast a cell phone rang. “Yes,” a woman’s voice answered.
“It’s done.”
Under normal conditions she would have disconnected and destroyed the cell phone. The job was done. Payment would be made. But this time was different.
“Call back,” she said, and hung up.
The next call would come from another public pay phone, and she would use another of her cell phone numbers. She pulled the battery from the back of the disposable phone, removed the SIM chip, and broke it in half. She would burn all of it later. Nothing would lead back to her.
Her job as a fixer required that she not leave anything to chance, and she was good at that. She had to be. A woman fixer was unheard of in the business a few years ago, but she had proven her worth to the organization. She did what needed to be done, no matter how undesirable.
Her crew had collected the body of the dead woman, and the same evening they killed the prostitute and her pimp. For her plan to work, the first body had to disappear entirely, and the other two bodies—or the heads, at least—would be left in a very public place.
The two contractors she had selected for this job were good. They did as they were told with no questions asked. In less than three hours, they had flown in to Louisville, rented a car, driven to the client’s location, and sent him on his way before they cleansed the scene of evidence.
She wasn’t happy that her crew had made personal contact with the client, but she needed someone to verify his condition, see if he could be trusted not to talk to anybody. Considering the tasks that were required of them, she’d had doubts they could pull it off.
Unfortunately, she was right. They’d been sloppy in the method of disposal of the first woman’s body. They had deviated from her plan, and now she would have to make changes. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
She sighed, picked up her glass of sparkling water, and added a twist of lime. When she reported the cock-up to her superiors, it would start a shit storm. They, too, were expecting a simple acknowledgment that the task was completed, and they were disturbed enough by the client’s actions. Not to mention he had called them using his personal cell phone. If someone was tracing phone records, things could get messy.
She took a sip of the water and watched out the window the dark, streamlined forms of cormorants as they swooped down into the sea, then lifted back into the sky. Sometimes they would have a fish in their grasp, sometimes nothing. The symbolism wasn’t lost on her. Life was like that. Sometimes you were the hunter, sometimes the prey. She’d been on both sides, and had fought for her position in the food chain. A mistake could cost her everything.
She began to run down a mental list of contractors who she trusted to take care of this botched job if it came to that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jack asked Detective Larry Jansen for the second time, “What are you doing here?”
Jack and Liddell had been waiting for Lilly to finish a phone call at the morgue when Jansen showed up in his scuffed lace-up shoes and permanently wrinkled trench coat.
Lilly had turned the air-conditioning down to subzero, and while Liddell and Jack were freezing their butts off, Jansen was sweating bullets. Jack, knowing Jansen had a heart attack not too long ago, asked him, “Are you okay?”
Jansen ran a hand through his greasy mop of hair. “I’m okay, Jack. Are you okay?” He looked offended. “I’m the missing persons detective, remember? I’m doing my job.”
“So who’s missing?” Liddell asked. “I mean besides missing a head and an arm.”
Jack knew Jansen wasn’t going to tell them anything. He was jealous of his cases to the point of leaving them unsolved rather than letting another detective get involved. He figured Jansen knew something they didn’t and was waiting for that “aha!” moment to tell them. That’s the way the man was wired.
Lilly came back in the room, poured her second cup of coffee, and added three heaping teaspoons of sugar. “That was your chief on the phone,” she said to the three men. “Better put on your big-boy pants. He’s on his way here.”
“That was the chief?” Liddell asked.
She gave Liddell what passed for a smile, then blew across the top of the steaming mug and took a sip. “I told him this wasn’t a pizza delivery joint. If he wants to view the remains, he has to come here, just like anyone else. Besides, I don’t know where our digital camera is to take a picture. Maybe it’s been sold to pay the electric bill.”
Jack knew the coroner’s office was struggling with the budget cuts, just like every other agency, but he also knew that it wasn’t like Lilly to piss off the chief of police. She must be in a mood.
“Did you hear about the mayor signing a sweetheart deal with one of his buddies?” Liddell asked.
Jack had heard the scuttlebutt. The city was leasing two buildings from the mayor’s brother at a cost of over one hundred fifty thousand a year, plus a hundred grand for the improvements needed to run computer and phone lines. The rumor was the mayor was taking the cost out of the police department’s manpower and equipment budget.
“Things are tough all over, Bigfoot,” Jack said. “Better drop it.”
A buzzer sounded from the front door of the building.
“I’ll have the receptionist get that,” Lilly said, and then threw her hands in the air. “Oh, I forgot. We don’t have a receptionist.”
Jansen hurried toward the back door that led to the garage.
“Tell us how you really feel, Lilly,” Liddell yelled as she left the room. He turned to Jack. “Where’s Larry going?”
Jack said, “My guess is he doesn’t want the chief to know he was trying to get paid for coming to work on a Sunday. He probably wasn’t called in to help with this case, and Sundays are double overtime.”
Chief Marlin Pope walked into the room, followed closely by Eric Manson.
“Jack. Liddell,” Eric said to the detectives.
What the hell is Manson doing here? Jack thought.
“There’s no need to use an autopsy table,” Lilly said as she wheeled a steel gurney into the examination room. “We really should wait until the doc gets here. And I don’t know when that’ll be. We may have to sell the Suburban to pay for his gasoline.”
“Have we identified her?” Pope asked, ignoring Lilly’s remarks.
“No,” Lilly said, scowling. “We haven’t identified the head yet, but maybe if we weren’t being interrupted by visiting dignitaries, we could get some work done. But don’t mind me. I’m just a grouchy old bitch today.”
“Not just today. Every day, Lilly,” Pope said, and Lilly gave him an evil grin.
They all moved in closer to the gurney while Lilly folded back the heavy green evidence bag to reveal the decapitated head.
Twigs and viscid blood were matted into long dark hair, and a flap of uneven skin was peeled back along the exposed skull. The skin around the flap was ragged, as if it had been chewed. The sightless eyes were wide; the mouth a straight bloodless slash in what was once a pretty face.
Eric Manson gasped at the sight. He turned pale and his lips became tight, his eyes squinted into slits.
Probably the first time he’s ever seen a dead body, Jack thought. If he didn’t dislike Manson so much, he’d feel sorry for the man. Or does he know her? Why is the chief deputy for the prosecutor’s office at the morgue? Unless . . .
“Well, Eric?” Pope asked.
Manson managed a strangled “It’s Nina.”
As Lilly rolled the gurney back to cold storage, the men went to the conference room to talk. That’s when Jack found out Eric’s link to the deceased.
“You did what?” Jack asked, and leaned across the conference table to glare at the chief deputy prosecutor.
“Look, Jack. I did what any good boss would do. I went to an employee’s house to check on their welfare.” The tone of his voice was challenging, not apologetic.
“You walked through a possible crime scene,” Jack hissed through clenched teeth. He didn’t add the word moron in deference to the chief of police, who was watching this exchange with interest.
“How was I to know Nina had been killed?” Eric asked. His eyes were still locked on Jack’s.
“It’s done, Jack,” Pope said, with finality. “At least Eric told us about it, so let’s work with what we’ve got.”
Jack nearly muttered, You mean I’ll have to work with what he has done.
“I’ll need a taped statement from you, Eric,” Jack said.
“Of course.”
“And fingerprints,” Jack added.
“DNA, too?” Eric asked sarcastically.
“Good idea.”
Eric wasn’t used to being treated like anything but a crown prince. “I don’t know what good it’ll do, since I already told you I was inside the house, but I’ll cooperate.”
Damn right you will, Jack thought.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Pope asked.
They both knew exactly what he meant.
“No problem with me,” Eric said.
“Or me,” Jack added.
“Good. Do you need us here, Jack?” Chief Pope asked.
“No, Chief. Thanks for coming,” Jack said. He turned to Eric and added a dose of harshness. “Just be sure you give those samples ASAP. I’ll get back to you on the statement, but I expect you to be available.”
“Sure thing, Detective Murphy.” Eric glared at Jack and left in a huff.
After Pope and Manson were gone, Liddell put an arm across Jack’s shoulders.
“Glad to see you’ve kissed and made up. I mean, you and Eric burying the hatchet and working together and all,” he said with a grin.
“Shut up, Bigfoot,” Jack said, thinking about burying the hatchet for real.
Lilly came into the room and stopped, staring at the men.
“What?” Jack asked.
“Unless one of you can do the autopsy, I’m getting back to work. Doc’s in Illinois and won’t be back for a couple of hours.” She headed down the hallway toward her office.
“Call us when he gets here,” Jack yelled at her retreating figure.
A short distance away, the outside door to the morgue’s garage closed, and Detective Larry Jansen hurried along the street to his car. He hadn’t been able to hear everything, but he’d heard enough.
So Eric knew the dead woman? She was a deputy prosecutor, no less. And, boy, did Jack get right in Eric’s shit about going inside the victim’s house!
This is great stuff. I can sell this.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was one in the morning in downtown Harrisburg when the two men stuffed the two headless corpses in the trunk of a stolen Ford Taurus. The girl’s body hadn’t been a problem, but the guy was easily three hundred pounds and they were both out of breath by the time they finished wrestling the body into the trunk. They had driven seventy miles back to Evansville, where they dumped, and then gone back to the house. It was almost daylight before they finished cleaning up the client’s mess. Book napped while Clint drove around on county back roads, crossed Interstate 64, and turned north onto Highway 41 toward Terre Haute.
He woke Book when they hit the outskirts of the city.
“Easy breezy,” Book said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Yeah. Easy,” Clint said, checking the dashboard clock. He took the ramp down to Interstate 70. “I vote we go to Indianapolis. We can get something to eat and a few hours sleep before we get out of here.”
“Where are we?” Book asked.
“Terre Haute. Two hours from the airport in Indy.”
“Find a motel near the airport and we’ll leave this evening,” Book said.
They intended to leave the Taurus in the long-term airport parking and fly home. Clint knew distance was their friend—he’d learned that lesson in the military. Hit and run. No one would think to look for them, or the car, in Indianapolis. And by the time the Taurus was found, they’d be long gone.
As they approached Indianapolis, Clint noticed how much the city had grown. He’d last been here in 2006, just before enlisting in the Army. The Indianapolis Colts, with Peyt
on Manning at quarterback, were robbed of their bid for Super Bowl XLI by the Pittsburg Steelers 21-18. The RCA Dome was gone now, torn down a few years after that amazing victory to make way for the expansion of the Convention Center. He had no interest in going to the new stadium, Lucas Oil. It had been built after he was already shipped to Iraq. No memories there.
“Find a phone,” Book said.
Clint took the next exit and drove around a depressed area on the edge of town until they found a telephone booth with an intact phone. Book got out and stretched.
“I’ll call the boss and then make sure the money goes in our account,” Book said, and Clint laid his seat back and closed his eyes. A hotel bed would feel good.
When Book got back in the car, he wasn’t smiling.
“So?” Clint asked.
“So, we go back,” Book said.
Clint said nothing. He and Book knew how to follow orders. But something bad had happened, or they wouldn’t have to go back. In the two years they’d been doing this they’d never had to go back.
“They found the head at the dump,” Book explained.
“No way. We buried her parts all over the landfill, Book. No way they found her,” Clint said, but then he remembered the dogs. He’d kicked one of them and sent it scrambling, but maybe it came back. Maybe they should have buried the parts deeper. In any case, this was all Book’s screwup. He was the one that had insisted on cutting her body into pieces.
Clint had met Book in Iraq, where they were both armored gunners, and they had become fast friends. Spent some time in Afghanistan, too. Clint’s original plan was to be career Army. Book, too. But after watching several of their buddies dissected by IEDs—improvised explosive devices—Book had shared an epiphany with Clint. Why get killed for the pennies the Army paid when they could make serious dough as mercenaries?
Clint agreed. They had become very proficient at taking the lives of their country’s enemies. What did it matter if they killed someone besides Uncle Sam’s enemies? The money was better on the private side.