Dark Remnants

by L. K. Hill

  “Not at all. You’ve been a lot of help in this case, Bailey. Practically did all my legwork for me. I appreciate it.”

  She flashed him a broad smile before leaving the room.

  Gabe turned to stare through the one-way glass into the interrogation room, where Tyke was calmly asking the same questions they’d been putting to Anderson for the past few hours.

  “I’m telling you I didn’t do this!” Anderson suddenly burst out. Tyke put his hands up in a placating motion, keeping his voice soft. Anderson quieted, the worry on his face deepening.

  A strange case, to be sure. Chances were that Anderson killed Malory Butler, and simply refused to admit it. Unlike police procedurals on television, confessions were a rarity. Still, something about the case bothered Gabe. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. That second set of prints, perhaps? He went over everything in his head several times, but based on what they had, nothing more could be reliably concluded. He supposed he should be grateful. It wasn’t often that he closed a murder case in less than forty-eight hours. With a sigh, he pushed back into the interrogation room.

  Hours later, with Anderson all squared away and en route to central booking, Gabe returned to his desk. His shift was technically over in an hour, but he had enough paper work for at least two to three hours beyond that. When he said as much out loud, Tyke arched an eyebrow at him from across the desk.

  “You gonna stay that long?”

  Gabe shrugged. “Why not?”

  Tyke looked at him like he was crazy. “Because it sucks.”

  Gabe barked a laugh, though he didn’t feel the humor. “I’d just as soon stay busy for the next twenty-four hours, Tyke.”

  “Why? What’s so special…” Tyke glanced at the wall calendar, then froze. “Is today…?”

  Gabe glanced at him, but didn’t say anything, determinedly studying his computer screen instead.

  “Oh man, I’m sorry. I completely forgot.”

  Cora pulled her eyes from her screen for the first time. “Forgot what? What’s today?”

  Gabe shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

  “The anniversary of Dylan’s death,” Tyke said quietly.

  “Disappearance,” Gabe corrected. It came out more irritably than he’d intended.

  “Right,” Tyke said quietly. “Sorry.”

  Guilt swept over Gabe for snapping at Tyke. In truth, his brother probably died the day he disappeared, or soon after. They’d just never found a body to confirm it. He’d been declared dead and given a headstone fifteen years later.

  “I’m sorry, too, Gabe,” Cora said. “We should have realized.”

  Gabe shrugged. “No reason to be. It’s not like a birthday or something I’d expect anyone to remember.”

  “So,” Cora’s eyes filled with concern, “do you have some sort of ritual you do every year? Go to his grave site or something?”

  Gabe shook his head. “No. I do that on his birthday. Today’s pretty much the day I have a drink with his picture and renew my vow to solve his case for another year. Oh, and feel guilty because it’s been twenty years and I haven’t solved it yet.”

  Tyke and Cora exchanged glances. And not subtly. “Okay Gabe,” Tyke said. “That settles it. You’re coming home with me after shift. Carol will be getting the kids ready for school. We’ll have breakfast. They’d all love to see you.”

  Gabe smiled, genuinely this time. “I appreciate it Tyke but, as much as I adore Carol’s cooking, I’ll take a rain check.”

  Tyke let out an exasperated breath. “Gabe, it’s not—”

  Thud.

  Gabe jumped as Shaun slapped a file down on his desk. It wasn’t particularly thick—only an inch or two—but it was solid.

  Gabe threw Shaun an irritated look, but reached toward the file. “What’s this?”

  Towering above, Shaun gave him a sympathetic look. “My sincerest apologies go with it.”

  Gabe drew his hand away from the file, suddenly afraid of what was in it. “Why?”

  Shaun sighed. “You’re familiar with the Carlottas?”

  “Sure,” Gabe said, still guarded. “Abstreuse royalty.”

  Shaun nodded. “A body was found in an empty pool on their property this morning.”

  Gabe glanced at the manila file. “Okay.” Anything involving the richest, most influential people in the city would be complicated, but even that didn’t sound too bad.

  “We’re pretty sure it’s Mr. Carlotta.”

  Gabe groaned. That was as bad as being assigned to a case involving a dead Hollywood celebrity. There was bound to be media attention, financial complications, political entanglements. “Why are you giving this to me?”

  Shaun shrugged. “Because you just closed your last homicide case in record time. Besides, didn’t I just hear you say you wanted to keep busy for the next twenty-four hours?”

  Gabe frowned. He, Tyke and Cora hadn’t exactly been whispering, and it wasn’t as if Shaun didn’t know about his brother—Gabe still hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the absent mail package—but he wondered how long had his boss been listening.

  “Actually,” Shaun said, his gaze taking in all three of them. “Gabe will be the lead, but I want you all at the crime scene. We need all eyes and hands on this, to make sure it doesn’t spin out of control.” His gaze returned to Gabe. “It has a high potential for that.”

  Sighing, Gabe nodded. “Yes, sir.” He pushed his chair back as he stood. Tyke and Cora followed suit.

  Chapter 12

  Kyra awakened to the buzzing of her alarm feeling…strange. And sore. But relatively well-rested. She stumbled into the bathroom and checked her bruises. They were far from healed, and most had darkened overnight, if only by a shade or two, but there was no more pain than she’d had the night before. She took it as proof that her injuries were nothing more than ugly bruises. If she had more series injuries, they would have looked far worse and hurt more.

  She applied makeup over the top of the visible injuries, hoping to avoid questions, but her makeup wasn’t thick enough to make them disappear completely. As Supra, she used Hollywood-grade makeup, applying it over every part of her skin to achieve an unhealthy pallor. It made her look so different that even those that knew her well probably wouldn’t recognize her.

  Today, working for the Carlottas, though, she just wore normal foundation and put some color on her eyelids. Kyra played delivery girl to the Carlottas every Thursday. It was a relief to not have to don the spikey black wig and fake track marks every once in a while. Mrs. Carlotta was the kind of woman that wanted her workers to look professional, but seeing as how Kyra was posing as a delivery van driver, not a financial advisor, casual dress was expected. She chose slightly washed out jeans and a light, cotton blouse the color of sea foam. She pulled her sandy blond hair into a ponytail, tugged on her sneakers, then grabbed her purse and order pad, and left the hotel room.

  This time she went through the front lobby. When she looked like herself, she made sure to greet the staff. If anybody asked, they would report that she—as herself—was staying here, and not someone looking like Supra.

  The beat up delivery van she used was one she’d purchased for five hundred dollars on the internet. She’d cleaned it up, hammered out some dings, and given it a fresh paint job. Now she climbed in and, realizing she was running late, pulled quickly out of the hotel lot. Mrs. Carlotta was a stickler for punctuality.

  That wasn’t the only reason Kyra was eager to get to the estate today. Eager, and anxious. She wanted to talk to Kenny.

  After agreeing to have a drink with him, and purposely getting him drunk to loosen his tongue, he’d told her things she was sure he shouldn’t have. She wondered how he’d react seeing her after their little date nearly a week before. Would he even remember everything he’d told her? Everything he’d given her was intriguing, but most of it was only nuggets—teasers of information she had little hope of understanding and less of verifying. She’d filed it all away,
though, hoping things would fall into place as she learned more of the Carlottas and their role in the underbelly of Abstreuse society.

  She hoped to get Kenny talking again; to get him to clarify some things. Even if he clammed up on her, his reaction to her questions could tell her a lot. And anything she found out could only bring her a step closer to finding Manny. Feeling determined, she eased her foot down on the gas pedal.

  Chapter 13

  Gabe surveyed the scene grimly. It was strange, to say the least. The dead man’s throat had been sliced from ear-to-ear, spilling blood down his neck and staining the collar of his starchy, tailored dress shirt. Yet he sat in a wicker patio chair, his hands zip-tied to the sides, wearing an expensive suit and an even more expensive watch, looking for all the world like he was ready for a board meeting. Except that he wore fuzzy, leopard-print slippers. And the chair was situated in the bottom, exact center, of a drained swimming pool.

  Gabe shook his head, not sure what to think. He didn’t really have any first impressions, except that it was bizarre, even more than most murders. The body was staged, and the reason for the positioning wasn’t readily apparent.

  The Carlotta estate was a sprawling affair, housing a tennis court, several swimming pools, voluminous gardens, and a Victorian mansion that had several wings. Apparently a small army of workers—from gardeners to pool boys and cooks to house maids—ran the place, which meant the suspect list was high. This definitely wasn’t the Slip Mire. It never ceased to amaze Gabe how many different tax brackets Abstreuse City held.

  At the moment, the Carlotta estate was crowded with law enforcement officials, most clad in dark vests with bright yellow lettering that announced who they were. The CSUs were snapping copious amounts of pictures, as they should be. They wouldn’t be able to keep the body in place indefinitely to study it. Pictures were a must.

  Outside the main drive up to the house, which was protected by iron gates and a state of the art surveillance system, officers had set up blockades and were trying to keep onlookers at bay. News vans and reporters had joined locals now, which meant the crowd would only grow throughout the day.

  Gabe’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Shaun. Again. “She coming yet?” Gabe asked after pushing the green button.

  “No.” Shaun sounded annoyed. Never a good sign. “You’d better start talking to the staff. See if any of them can do it.”

  Gabe sighed. He’d been afraid of that. “Isn’t there a picture of this guy you can send me?”

  “Surprisingly, no. I’ve looked. Mrs. Carlotta says her husband is superstitious about having his picture taken. There are a few, but most are dark. She says the most recent one is two years old. I don’t think they’d turn out well if I took a picture of a picture with my phone. I’d have to bring it to you, and I’m not leaving Mrs. Carlotta and hiking half a mile to do that just yet. See if you can find someone else. If you can’t, I’ll send one of the unies.”

  “Okay.” Gabe hung up the phone and started across the grounds. The body—probably Mr. Carlotta—had yet to be formally identified. It was discovered in the pre-dawn when a pool boy came in to work and found it. The pool boy thought it was Mr. Carlotta, but he’d only been employed at the estate for about a week, and couldn’t say for sure. When Mrs. Carlotta heard the news, she’d gone into a fit of hysterics, sobbing uncontrollably and pounding the walls. Shaun was with her, but she still hadn’t calmed down enough to make an ID. The problem was, there didn’t seem to be anyone else around who could do it either. Apparently, Mr. Carlotta was out of town on business trips a lot and the staff never dealt with him. Most didn’t even know what he looked like.

  Gabe had called the cell number Mrs. Carlotta gave them for her husband multiple times. It always went straight to voice mail, and the body didn’t have any cell phone or I.D on it. If Mr. Carlotta’s phone was dead, there was no telling where it was.

  A handful of people that had seen Carlotta’s picture in the paper before told Gabe they were ‘pretty sure’ it was him. That wasn’t good enough.

  Gabe would have to find someone who could. It didn’t sound like Shaun was making much progress with Mrs. Carlotta. Most of the staff was sequestered in one of the kitchens—yup, one of several—that had an entrance on the west side of the house. Gabe headed there, hoping one of the staff knew Mr. Carlotta’s face well enough to I.D. him. It would take all of thirty seconds to accomplish, once they found someone who could, but they couldn’t move forward until they had a positive ID.

  “Gabe!”

  He glanced over to find Cora motioning to him from one of the gardens. Changing directions, he crossed the yard to her. She stood over a crime scene specialist who was making a mold of a shoe impression left in soft soil between rows of tulip-filled planters.

  “We got a clean print,” Cora said.

  Gabe leaned over to get a better look. The front part of the shoe, as well as the heel, were perfectly preserved, but it looked as though the part covering the foot’s arch didn’t touch the ground.

  “A man’s size thirteen boot,” the specialist said. “Has a distinctive design on the bottom. Might be custom made.”

  Gabe nodded. An oval just below the toe, transected by a zigzag of lightning wasn’t any mass produced brand he’d ever seen. “Good.” Near the back corner of the print on either side, slender, inch-long gouges had been pressed into the dirt. They didn’t appear to be part of the print itself. “What made those other lines?” He pointed. “Is that from something hanging off the shoe?”

  “My guess would be spurs,” the specialist nodded. “Hard to say for sure yet, though.”

  “Let me know if the database turns anything up,” Gabe said and turned toward the kitchen again.

  “Detective Nichols!” He sighed. The problem with being lead detective on a case like this was that there was so much to do, it was hard to get anything done. A uniformed cop he didn’t know motioned for him just outside the garden.

  “There’s a woman here who says she has a delivery for Mrs. Carlotta. She’s not normal staff—only comes here once a week. She needs to know what to do with the delivery. Can Mrs. Carlotta be bothered?”

  Gabe thought for a moment, then shook his head. Mrs. Carlotta probably wouldn’t care about a delivery, no matter what it was. “No. I’ll come talk to the vendor.”

  They angled away from the house and toward the perimeter. A slender drive ran along the outside wall of the estate, hidden by tall shrubs. Vendors delivering products used a smaller entrance than the main gates and took the narrow drive toward the house, unseen by the rest of the estate.

  As Gabe and the officer approached the far side of the estate, his eyes fell on a wide, older-model blue delivery van. It had been forced to stop half-way up the narrow drive where a police barricade blocked the way. The officer was headed toward a slight, slender woman—probably in her mid-twenties—who stood with her arms folded over her chest, watching the goings on around the estate with worry. She wore light jeans and a pretty blouse, and had her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  With her eyes scanning the goings-on of the estate, she didn’t look up at Gabe until he stood directly in front of her. “Ma’am?”

  Her eyes shifted up to his face, then flew wide in near panic. With a sharp inhalation, she danced back from him several steps.

  “Whoa!” Gabe held up his hands.

  She put a hand to her chest as though to steady her breathing and studied the ground, grimacing and shaking her head, as though to dispel an image.

  “Did I…startle you?” Gabe asked, feeling foolish. Given her reaction, it was a stupid question.

  “I…um…just…” With obvious effort she collected herself and rolled her shoulders back. She glanced up at him warily for several beats before letting out a sheepish laugh, spots of color blooming in her cheeks. “You…I…thought you were someone else,” she finally managed, looking embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  “No,” he stepped toward her, concerned. Wh
oever she’d taken him for must have been someone she feared. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He glanced at the uniformed officer, who also frowned with concern over her reaction.

  She shook her head, a bit too emphatically. “Don’t be.” She kept glancing up at him, then looking away self-consciously. “It’s…not your fault.”

  For a moment, when she glanced up at him, he thought he recognized her. That wary look; where had he seen it before? The next moment, he was sure he’d never seen her before. “I’m Detective Nichols,” he said. “Have we…met?”

  She immediately shook her head. “No.”

  She wouldn’t look at him when she said it, but he thought it was more that she was still getting her bearings, and embarrassed about her earlier reaction, than anything else.

  He changed the subject. “So…you have a delivery?”

  Her voice became businesslike as she nodded. “Yes. In the van, there.” She thrust her chin out in the direction of the blue van. For the first time, he noticed bruises on the side of one eye and her neck. She’d obviously used makeup to cover them, but when she turned a certain way in the sunlight, they were clearly visible.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Carlotta is involved in a mail-order cosmetic company,” she answered. “It’s one of her side-businesses. Every week I bring her samples of the newest products and take an order for the next week.” Her voice had a musical quality to it, but still managed to seem grounded.

  Gabe nodded, undecided about what to do. Bottom line, he didn’t want to bother Mrs. Carlotta with frivolities. He could just picture the glower Shaun would unleash on him if he tried.

  “Look, uh…sorry I didn’t get your name.”

  For just an instant, she froze, looking trapped again, but covered it smoothly. “Tanya Roberts.”

  He must have really and truly scared her before. Either that, or she was just a nervous person. “Ms. Roberts, I don’t think Mrs. Carlotta will want to make an order today. She’s got too many other things on her mind. As for the order, could you bring it back another day?”