by L. K. Hill
Cora raised an eyebrow. “You think she’s undercover?”
Gabe had already considered the possibility and rejected it. He considered it again, but still shook his head. “If she was, why wouldn’t she just say, ‘Hey, I’m UC. Can't blow my cover, but here’s the deal?’ There was no one else around to see or hear.”
“Not to mention,” Tyke said, “if she were UC, she’d have someone she could report to. She wouldn’t need to resort to lurking in back alleys, waiting for one of us to make a trip to the parking lot.”
“True,” Cora admitted. “Even so, it might be smart to have Shaun check around; find out what, if any, UCs are in the area. Even if she isn’t one, maybe they could tell us something about her or what went down tonight.”
Gabe nodded.
“We can also use them to circulate her sketch, once we have it,” Tyke said. “They can help us figure out who she is. Discreetly. If she was adamant about not wanting to come in here, I doubt she’ll appreciate us putting up wanted posters.”
Gabe nodded. “Let’s reinforce discretion. She said if I dragged her into the station, I’d get her killed. Granted, if she was crazy or paranoid it might not be that dramatic, but at the very least, she believes it. The last thing I want to do is to put this woman in danger. Especially if we want her to give us more information.”
Cora nodded, getting to her feet. “I’ll pull a list of UCs from Shaun. You do the sketch. We’ll go from there.”
She left the room, but Gabe didn’t move. He was still turning the whole thing over in his head.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Tyke said. “The raid, I mean.”
Gabe barked a laugh. “If this turns out to be bogus, Tanner will make sure everyone thinks it was.”
“He’s not that bad, Gabe. He may be angry, but even he knows we can ignore something like this and risk lives unnecessarily.” Tyke studied him for a minute. “You’re kind of intrigued by this woman, huh?”
Gabe shook himself and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I guess I am. Everything about her was just so…incongruous. You know, she even referred to the warehouse district as the Carmichael district.”
Tyke looked at him like he’d just announced water was wet. “The warehouse district is the Carmichael district, Gabe.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “I know that, but Mirelings never refer to it that way. They call it Warehouse Block.”
Tyke arched an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side, considering. “Oh. That’s true.”
Gabe shrugged. “I’m just saying she didn’t act much like a typical junkie or Mireling. One thing’s for sure: she certainly wasn’t willing to trust me. Anyway, I’d better find that sketch artist.”
They left the office together, and Gabe headed toward his desk. He’d have to call around and figure out who the resident sketch artist was.
“Gabe!”
He turned at the sound of Shaun’s voice. The big man strode down the hall toward him, threading through the flood of people headed for the parking lot after having been told there would be no raid tonight.
“Looks like you would’ve been called in on your night off, anyway.”
Gabe suppressed a groan. Busy nights made for complicated cases. When he reached Gabe, Shaun handed him a slip of paper. “What is it?” Gabe asked.
“Dead body in the Mire. Third and Charles. CSU is already on route. They’ll meet you there.”
Gabe sighed and cast a regretful glance toward his desk. The sketch would have to wait. “All right.” Changing directions, he headed—once again—toward the parking lot.
Chapter 4
By the time Gabe arrived, the scene was blocked off, the crime scene unit already hard at work. The body lay in a narrow alley—just wide enough for a standard car to drive through without destroying its side-view mirrors. There were no lights on the buildings sandwiching the alley, which would have made it awfully dark a few hours earlier. Now, squad cars stretched across the entrances on both sides, their spotlights illuminating the scene from either end. Tape stretched across both entrances as well, and half a dozen blue-uniformed cops did their best to keep onlookers away from the scene.
Gabe didn’t know what time it was—after midnight, surely—but there were still plenty of people out in this part of the city. It was one of the things that made the Slip Mire so dangerous. When the first squad cars showed up, the Mirelings would have scattered. Gabe had seen it dozens of times when he was still working a beat. They would disappear into the shadows in fear of the police or to do their deals in secret. Once they were done, or at least had successfully hidden anything incriminating, their curiosity got the better of them and they eventually slinked back out to gawk at what was happening. The crowd peering into the alley held gangsters, hookers, pimps, gaunt-faced users, homeless teenagers, all come to see what the commotion was.
Bypassing them all, Gabe ducked under the police tape and headed toward a blond woman wearing a CSU vest. She squatted near a body lying supine across the alley.
The deceased was a hooker, by her garb. Dark, wavy hair fanned out across the street, and makeup that might have been applied with a paint sprayer—now smeared—adorned her eyelids, cheeks, and lips. Blood covered her chest and abdomen, ribbons of it lying delicately across her arms and legs.
“Evening, Bailey,” Gabe said as he fell into a squat beside her, pulling out a mini legal pad and pen. “Busy night?”
Baily tossed her shoulder length blond hair as she turned to him. A pretty, athletic woman, she had blunt features and a blunter temperament. They worked together often on the night shift. “You have no idea,” she said drily. “You?”
He shrugged. “I’m here by myself, aren’t I? Actually, it’s supposed to be my night off, but apparently there are lots of people getting themselves offed tonight. What can you tell me?”
Bailey smirked at his last comment, but was all business a moment later. “Female vic. Hooker. Shame, too. She’s real pretty.”
Gabe let his eyes run over the girl’s face. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen. “Yeah, she is. Did the M.E. release the body?”
“Yeah, but I already checked. No ID. Nothing at all in her pockets. Either her killer was the first customer of the night, or he took anything she’d already made. Mike says she’s only been dead an hour.”
Gabe nodded, making notes on his pad.
“I count eight stab wounds to the chest. There’s plenty of cast-off as you can see.”
Gabe looked at her, arching a questioning eyebrow. She pointed to the alley wall. For the first time he saw long, streaking, mostly vertical ribbons of blood. They covered the walls on both sides of the body.
“That’ll be from when he brought the knife back between stabbing motions.” Bailey clenched her hand into a fist, as though she held a blade, and brought it over her head to illustrate. “There’s a void in the blood over here.” She stood to examine part of the alley wall.
“What does that tell us?” Gabe asked, staying where he was.
“I think she was standing here when the first two or three stab wounds was inflicted.”
“Standing?”
“Yeah. He had her pinned against the wall. They were…doing their business. Then he started stabbing her.”
“So how’d she end up all the way over here?”
Bailey shrugged. “In the struggle. She has defensive wounds on her hands and arms, which means she fought back. My kind of girl. There’s a void in the blood on her abdomen, too.” She walked toward the body and leaned over it, pointing. “See?”
Gabe peered down to see a circular void just below the victim’s sternum. “Is that a knee mark?”
“Good eyes, Nichols,” Bailey nodded approvingly. “He probably knelt on her, used his weight to anchor her down so he could stab her five more times.”
Gabe let out his breath and shook his head. “That’s a lot of rage. What else?”
“Not much. I’ve already swept the scene. N
ot much to be found that’s useful.”
“What’s this white stuff on her abdomen, crisscrossing the blood?”
Bailey barked a laugh. “Given that she was a hooker and what their ‘business’ was, what do you think it is?”
Gabe glanced from Bailey, to the void on the wall, to the victim. He registered vague revulsion. “Oh. Right.” He wiped his hands on his pants, though he hadn’t actually touched the body. Bailey would have ripped him a new one for trying it without gloves.
“I’m not positive,” Bailey went on, “but I already took samples to send to the lab. It if is semen, we’ll get a DNA profile. At least we’ll have that, even if the killer’s not in the system.” She said it almost cheerfully, and Gabe smiled. Bailey managed to be cheerful about the strangest things.
A noise from behind made Gabe spin on his toe. Mike, their plump, gray-haired medical examiner navigated a gurney between the squad cars and under the yellow tape. A black body bag was strapped to the top.
“Hey Mike,” Gabe said, straightening his legs as the gurney rolled up.
“Gabe,” Mike gave him a nod.
“Actually,” Bailey said, “before you transport her, I’d like permission to print the body. Gabe?”
“What for?”
“Given how they were standing, how he had her pinned, there’s a good chance he left prints on her shoulders or arms.”
Gabe nodded. “That’s fine with me.”
“Can you give me a few minutes, Mike?”
Mike shrugged. “Sure. Take your time. I don’t mind a breather or two.”
Gabe smirked. Busy night all around, it seemed. “I’m gonna interview some witnesses before this crowd disperses.”
Bailey nodded without looking at him, already busy digging into her kit. Mike gave him a tight smile and Gabe moved toward the onlookers, wondering if anyone would admit to having seen anything.
Before reaching the police tape, he turned back to take in a broad view of the entire alley. It was something he always did to get a feel for the overall scene. There was nothing scientific or logical about it, but he found it helped him get in the right mindset for a specific crime scene, which in turn helped him pick up on subtle details better than he otherwise would have.
Gabe had worked literally hundreds of homicide cases in his three years since making detective. Abstreuse was one of the murder capitals of the world, and the Slip Mire was the gyrating center of it all.
As he swept his eyes down the alley, something seemed different about this scene than others he’d worked. He registered a sense of something dim and sticky lurking nearby, as though the shadows outside the light fields were oozing together somehow. It didn’t feel like something that was actually present, though—not like Bailey or Mike or the onlookers peering into the alley. No, this felt more like something that had been left behind.
Shaking himself to ward off the strange sensation, he turned toward the crowd.
Chapter 5
Kyra skulked in the entry way of a closed business. The shadows cloaked the niche so well that dozens of people had passed by only inches away, and she knew they had no idea she was there. Good. If they couldn’t see her, neither could that detective.
After leaving the precinct, she’d come back down to M Street. She felt somewhat guilty for leaving him gaping after her like she had, but he’d looked sufficiently disturbed that she didn’t think he’d just blow off what she’d told him. The rest was in his hands, now. The more he’d pushed to have her enter the station, the more her adrenaline had pounded. She envisioned all the work she’d done over the past three months fizzling in a haze of florescent precinct light. The thought was so depressing—this work was so difficult—that it made her want to curl up in a ball and cry. No. No police stations. She had to keep her cover firmly intact.
Even before she got back to K Street, she’d heard the commotion and seen the lights from several streets over. Normally, she avoided police lights like the plague, but as more and more people headed toward the scene, she knew she could lose herself in the anonymity of the crowd. She’d stood close to the police tape, with the other rubber-neckers, peering into the alley for a time. The dead woman was obviously a hooker, just not one Kyra was familiar with.
Then a dark sedan pulled up and out stepped the very cop she’d spoken to an hour earlier. She’d gasped, bringing several heads in the crowd around. Putting her face to the ground, she quickly stepped backward. No eyes followed her. They were too busy following the detective.
Kyra’s first instinct was to move quickly away from the scene so he wouldn’t see her. He’d grabbed her arm and peered down into her face in such a way that she was sure he’d recognize her instantly if he caught her eye again. Besides, cops had good eyes for faces. It was their job.
She took a deep breath and her street smarts took over. Moving away quickly from a crime scene would look suspicious. She’d learned plenty about police procedure and criminal psychology in her work. She knew that perpetrators often returned to the scene of their crimes to watch the investigation. That meant that the hooker’s killer could be in this very crowd. It also meant the police would be watching faces.
Kyra pulled the cowl of her hoodie down farther and kept her face down. The detective passed not four feet in front of her, but a dozen bodies stood between them, and he didn’t bother to scan the crowd as he passed.
She watched him enter the alley, squat by the body, make notes on a small pad, talk to the CSU woman. Kyra moved backward, one step at a time, counting to twenty between steps, so no one would notice her progression. When she reached the back of the crowd, she backed up into the doorway of the dark building. Confident that she wouldn’t be seen now, she watched the goings-on in front of her.
The detective—she didn’t know his name—started talking to the crowd, asking for witnesses, no doubt. He spoke with authority, unafraid of the Mirelings, despite their often intimidating appearance. He had a strong jaw and a direct gaze, but he didn’t talk down to them. As he approached the crowd, a good third of the onlookers melted away, not interested in speaking to a cop. Others responded, though, and she was surprised at how well the detective managed to draw answers from the crowd.
Kyra studied the detective. She could see him more clearly here, under the spotlights of the squad cars, than she’d been able to in the dim alley. Dark, close-cropped hair was brushed back from his face and hawkish green eyes seemed to penetrate every shadow, making Kyra hunch lower into her hoodie. Head and shoulders taller than her with thick arms and chest, he was not lean at the waist so much as solidly built, though without any gut. He obviously knew how to speak to people like these. She wondered if he was a staple in the Slip Mire. She’d never seen him before, but then she hadn’t observed any cops up close since arriving in Abstreuse.
At the edge of the crowd, a woman with red hair caught Kyra’s attention. It was the same woman who’d been talking to Tina earlier. What was her name? Sadie? Yes, that was it. Sadie. Abruptly, Sadie turned from the scene and practically fled. Her face was pinched, eyes tight. She couldn’t be sure in the dark, but Kyra thought she was on the verge of tears. Sadie ran past another woman, who reached a hand out to her, but Sadie brushed the woman off, charging off into the darkness.
When the second woman turned, Kyra recognized Tina. She stood ten feet farther down the street.
“Psst. Tina.”
Tina looked around, her eyes passing right over Kyra twice before Kyra lifted a hand to show where she was. Tina jumped, her eyes widening, before approaching. Her heels made staccato clicks on the sidewalk. “You can blend in, can’t you? How long have you been standing there?”
Kyra shrugged. “Not long.” She motioned to the doorway with her head and Tina joined her in the shadows. “Did you know this girl?” She jutted her chin out in the direction of the alley.
Tina shook her head. “Not well. I’d met her a few times.” She sighed. “Could have been any one of us, though.” She shivered.
“What was her name?”
“Mallory. Butler, I think. Seemed nice enough.”
“Did you see what happened?” Kyra asked.
“Naw. I ‘as with a customer. When I got back, the cops were already here.”
Kyra nodded. She’d asked Tina for information about various things before. When she was having a busy night—making plenty of money—she was definitely looser-tongued than when things were slow and she was stressing about rent.
“I saw your friend Sadie,” Kyra said. “She looked kind of upset.”
Tina nodded. “She would be. She and Mallory used to be roommates.”
Kyra arched an eyebrow. “Really?” Tina nodded. “Why not anymore?”
“Sadie has a kid, now. Moved into her own place. Didn’t want roommates bringing guys back and all. Her and Mallory were still pretty close, though.”
Kyra’s knee started bouncing on its own while she thought. There was no reason to pursue this, was there? A murdered girl was tragic—any murder was—but chances were it was just some over-zealous customer. Hooking was a dangerous profession. This had nothing to do with Kyra’s real work—finding Manny—and could only be a distraction.
Still, this happened in an area she frequented. Finding out a little more about it—even just to avoid danger herself—might be prudent. She turned to Tina. “Where does Sadie live?”
Chapter 6
Gabe gazed out over the bustling bullpen. Despite canceling the raid, there were still more people than usual running around the station, making calls, fighting over computers. After hours at his murder scene, Gabe had returned to the precinct and been cornered by Tanner. He’d been told in no uncertain terms that he would do no other work until he produced a sketch of the spikey-haired woman from the alley. Now Gabe sat in a comfortable wooden chair beside a small desk, one ankle crossed over his other knee, watching the organized chaos.
Behind the desk on his right, a man with thin, dark, shoulder-length hair and spectacles that perched on the tip of his nose drew on an over-sized sketch pad. He turned the pad around for Gabe’s inspection.