Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3

by James, Ranay

  “So?” Green asked. “What’re we looking at? Natural causes I’d say.”

  “Too, soon to make that call,” Slade said as he turned the senator’s body up on his side. He needed to get a look at his back. The pooling of blood under the skin at the base of the senator’s spine was evidence that the senator was not moved after death.

  Drinking, smoking, age, or weight, any one of those factors could kill you, Slade thought tuning out the noise of the hum of voices murmuring softly across the suite. The other detectives were taking statements and documenting the evidence. The photographer’s cameras clicked and flashed in the background.

  Natural causes were definitely feasible, Slade supposed. Another option was the senator suffocated to death after aspirating into his lungs from being drunk, passing out, throwing up, and then choking on it. The dried vomit trickling out of the corner of his mouth was a good indication of it.

  “Brian Parker, right?” Slade waved the young forensic technician over to the bed.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The young man scrambled over in awe of this chief who somehow knew his name even though he had just joined the Phoenix force less than ten days ago.

  Slade’s reputation preceded him. This was the first time Brian had the opportunity to work with this legend of law enforcement. Brian had recently moved from L.A. where Detective Jericho was a topic of conversation around many a coffee pot. He had been doing some reading up on Chief Deputy Director Jericho’s dossier. The man was unbelievable in his ability to solve a homicide. In eleven years any case Detective Jericho happened to touch was solved. A one-hundred percent closing ratio was virtually unheard of in their line of work. Yet, Brian was looking at the one man who had pulled it off.

  “Be sure to get a sample of that,” Slade softly ordered Brian, pointing to the trickle at the corner of the senator’s mouth. “Have it tested for composition.”

  Slade’s eagle-eyes picked up on a critical piece of evidence the senator’s aides had failed to discard before police arrived on the scene. He issued another order as he pointed out the lone cigarette butt and prescription drug bottle which had fallen between the bedside table and the bed frame, “Bag those, Parker,” Slade said pointing to the butt with deep red lip gloss around the filter. It was almost buried in the carpet and he might have thought it old except the gloss was still tacky with very little debris attached. It was freshly fallen.

  “This belongs to our witness.” Or murderer, he added mentally. “Bag it separately.”

  “Yes, sir, absolutely, sir.”

  Slade turned the senator’s head slightly to the left.

  “Brian, come here. Let me show you something,” he said after waiting for Parker to bag that piece of evidence.

  “Strangulation?” Brian asked softly standing next to Slade.

  “No, I don’t believe so.” Slade shook his head. “Use the dust to try and lift a print from the back of the senator’s neck. See the slight smudging of the markings here and here?” he asked pointing to the senator’s pelvic area. “Whoever, did this was sitting on top of him and reaching around his throat from the front, like this,” he said demonstrating.

  The light came on in Brian’s eyes and Slade slightly smiled. “Autoerotic asphyxiation.”

  “Yes, that’s using your head, Parker. So, tell me Brian, why not strangulation?” Slade continued to prompt.

  “Because, the faint bruising on the senator’s neck and throat is not dark enough for it to have been fatal.”

  “Good work, Parker. We’ll make a field agent out of you yet,” Slade offered placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder and giving him a healthy squeeze of approval.

  The markings were probably from his mystery partner’s attempts to choke him during masturbation or sex for a heightened sense of euphoria. Slade couldn't fathom how being strangled during sex was enjoyable or why it becoming more popular to so. However, he was usually seeing deaths by autoerotic asphyxiation with the younger crowd. Usually it was not men in their sixties, but males in their mid-twenties that he saw dead after a miscalculation in how little time it takes to kill yourself by hanging. Not that the senator was above a little kinky sex, he supposed looking at the tattoos and the additional faint bruising on the senator’s wrists and ankles. He had been cuffed and tied. The slight marring of the bed posts could be from a round of bondage sex, however, not necessarily the senator’s round. This was a hotel after all.

  Detective Green slightly pushed his shoulder between Slade and Brian from behind. “The senator’s aides are saying that he was here alone, on a retreat to mediate and prepare for the beginning of the new campaign trail,” Green offered with a look that was definitely telling.

  Slade remembered the senator was due up for reelection in eighteen months and according to the political scuttle, he had some stiff competition on the horizon. His softer stance on immigration and drug enforcement had almost cost him the election the last round.

  Green lowered his voice as he leaned closer into the young technician. “Personally, Brian, I think the aides are all full of shit as a Christmas goose.”

  Slade slightly smiled. Green did have a way of calling it like he saw it. “Now, Green, let’s not color Parker’s opinion of our elected public officials.” Slade felt Green was probably right. To him something did not feel right either about the crock of bullshit the aides were spouting. He wondered if the senator’s staff thought he and his men had just graduated from the academy and was here on the scene without a clue. Several of the aides were no older than Parker. That immaturity was showing itself because nothing fit with the story the aides were giving them. The evidence just said otherwise.

  What man drinks four bottles of wine alone in a hotel room, drawing treasure maps on himself leading to his penis, and all the while trying to choke himself at the same time as getting off?

  So, Slade thought, as far as the senator’s drinking alone, he would bet that was not happening at the time the senator died. He would get Green to push them until they came clean with the facts. Green was damn good at that part of the job.

  Senator Roscoe was no saint and his aides had undoubtedly ushered the young lady out before they got there, not to protect her identity and reputation, but the senator’s.

  That act was totally lost on Slade. The man was known for his infidelities and indiscretions, and as far as Slade knew, he had never once apologized for them.

  Maybe it was to protect Linda Wyatt, the senator’s steady “girlfriend” of eleven years, who he had been promising to marry for the last ten? However, unless the future Mrs. Roscoe drew the maps on her now-deceased fiancé that part of the mystery was no longer under wraps.

  “We need to find out where Linda Wyatt was last night.” Slade sent Detective Foster off in that direction. "Who found the body?” Slade asked Detective Lacy his second in command. Lacy was a top notch and fine detective in Slade’s mind and in line to take his position at the end of the month.

  “Housekeeping found him. The senator had a standing order for fresh towels to be delivered each evening before he retired. She knocked and then let herself in after she got no answer from inside.”

  “Who called it in?” Slade stood there with his arms crossed looking around the room, just letting it speak to him.

  “The hotel manager called it in directly to Chief Holiday’s personal cell. I think they play golf from time-to-time.”

  Slade nodded. Ahhh, he thought, no wonder the chief had called him directly and not dispatch.

  This was supposed to be his day off and the chief had just caught him coming in from his sideline job. A half hour sooner and the chief would not have reached him.

  Slade was not going to rule this death accidental or natural because it was not obvious on the surface that it was murder. He was not going to rule anything out. That would be up to the medical examiner and the forensic specialists. He was just here to see that it all got done right and that none of the pieces fell through the cracks.
He would rule it later, pending further investigation.

  There would have to be a statement issued soon. The media was already all over it with speculation and rumors running wild. In his experience both were usually far from the truth.

  Slade understood better than anyone that sometimes the threads of truth bind together events which viewed separately were seemingly unrelated. Finding that thread of truth is what good investigating was all about and what he had devoted his life to doing.

  “They say ‘the truth shall set you free’, Parker.” Slade did not like the feel of this space. It felt tainted.

  Brian nodded in agreement. “Find it or die trying, sir. That is what my mamma says.”

  Finding the truth and uncovering the secrets was always the ultimate goal as long as a person is willing to pay the price, and Slade knew better than anyone that sometimes knowing the truth can also kill you.

  Chapter 1

  The night air blew softly into the open window as Kari Ransom finished her article just in the nick of time. She was pushing her two a.m. deadline to the limit and sliding in sideways just under the wire.

  As a freelance writer she often worked late into the night. The quiet of the city inspired her and brought out her inner muse. The subtle change of the heartbeat could be felt by those in tuned to its special rhythm. She was a night creature, always had been, driving her foster parents and older sister crazy through the years. She felt at her best as the long shadows generated by the moon stretched out over the city skyline. She needed very little sleep and chose to power nap in the late afternoons. It had worked for her for years and she saw no reason to change.

  Tonight was no different as she hit the send button on her latest piece. It was good, maybe even great. It was the sixth piece in what was going to be a nine part series on inner city crime, graft, and political corruption. She was now critically acclaimed with the first five parts, winning her accolades for her gutsy reporting. The specifics she had dug up while doing her investigation were shocking. She could never put into writing most of the evidence. That much information cast about in print would gain her a seat right next to Jimmy Hoffa on a bus ride to hell. Truthfully, the disappearance of Hoffa was one mystery she would love to solve; however, not necessarily with firsthand knowledge.

  “Meow, meow”. The large male brindle with a bobbed tail leapt up onto the window sill from the fire escape and then jumped onto the floor with a healthy thump. Rubbing against her, and intertwining his big, long body with her legs just enticed her to pick him up.

  “I know, Bobby. I don’t want to end up like Jimmy Hoffa either.” She scratched the fuzzy head of this wild-stray-turned-domesticated pet. He had shown up one day over a year ago and she had fallen in love with him. Rubbing noses with him, she then dropped him back on the floor. “Go on. I need to pack,” she told him as she got up from her desk.

  The death threats had increased with each successive piece. The locks and security measures on her building doubled after the last publication. Her landlord did it feeling the need not to necessarily keep her safer, but to make the other tenants feel better. She wasn’t totally convinced the threats were not from some of those same neighbors.

  She couldn’t blame them and held nothing against those who felt she was simply out of her mind for doing what she felt was her civic duty. What they could not see and chose not to understand was the fact that she was being driven to do these articles. It was a force she could not hold back. Karma would take care of itself. Consequently, she held no resentment for the dirty looks and comments she received.

  They were just trying to make a living going about their lives in blissful ignorance. Once a light is shined on an ugly stain there is no way to go back to ignoring it, and she had placed a bright light on some pretty ugly spots, not just in Phoenix, but other major cities as well.

  “Bobby, you know you are doing something right when the pot gets stirred,” she said as she closed the cover on her laptop, leaving it connected to the docking station.

  She disconnected the portable 320 gigabyte hard drive containing all her notes, references, sources, and witnesses. The antique buffet in her dinning room was a fun piece of furniture designed and built in the 1920s. Her backup drive would be safe there, tucked into the secret nook carved out of the back which was designed to hide liquor bottles during prohibition.

  She always saved everything to a backup drive because she had learned the hard way when she lost months of work due to a hard drive crash on her laptop.

  Never again, she had vowed after that mishap!

  Under normal circumstances, she usually kept the drive with her at all times. However, she was not going to take her computer on vacation. This was a trip for fun, not work. Besides, her sister would kill her for bringing work along. It had been difficult for her to unplug on their last trip together and Kristen had been very specific in her conditions and demands to pay Kari’s way on this Caribbean vacation.

  No work! Kristen has told her in no uncertain terms.

  “Hey,” she shrugged, “it is an easy thing to do for a good time with my sister.” Bobby barely looked up from his food bowl. “You are soooo not going to like the flight, puss-puss. Sorry, but I just can’t leave you behind. That mean lady downstairs threw another shoe at you didn’t she?” she asked while scratching his head and listening to his purr of contentment. Bobby would not mind. He loved his benefactor and would follow her anywhere. He just did not like his cage.

  Kari also had a copy of her resources on the way to a very safe place, along with instructions to hand it over to police should anything ever happen to her. It was strictly precautionary, but one could never be too careful. It was prudent to have a backup plan considering she had dug up some seriously nasty dirt on some pretty high ranking officials in Phoenix and other larger cities across the nation.

  This piece she just delivered was going to blow the lid off a multimillion dollar Welfare and Medicare scam in Detroit. Currently, with the article in the bag, she was taking her publisher's advice and leaving town for a little while until things settled down a notch or two. She was going on an extended trip to do some island hopping in Caribbean with her sister. She had already checked in online, but still needed to get a move on. Her flight was wheels up at six that morning, and she had just enough time to make it.

  “Oh,” she said, remembering the open window just as she was about to walk out the door with her suitcase and cat carrier in hand.

  She should have left the window alone.

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