by Dale Mayer
“That just supports the argument that we need a big commercial unit.” Glancing at his face, she added, “I wish we’d hear from the coroner on Jason’s case.”
“What about the family?”
“They’ve been informed,” she said quietly. Those jobs were the worst. “And they, of course, have no idea what’s happened, nor if that location where he was found was important.”
“Nothing? Not an inkling on that location?”
“False Creek is an area they know of,” she said. “Definitely a wealthy community but they’re at the lower end of that margin,” she said. “As expected, they’re devastated, but they didn’t have anything new to offer.”
“Of course not,” he said, “they never do. He’s been missing what, six months?”
“Six months, two days, and three hours,” she said, her tone even lower.
His sharp glance landed on her face and bounced off again. “He is a priority,” he said. “I don’t need to remind you of that.” He turned and walked into his office.
No, he didn’t need to remind her. Any child’s case, particularly this one—a missing boy, who shows up dead and in the condition he was in, six months after he’s been kidnapped—definitely wouldn’t be a secondary case. But, so far, they didn’t have anything. She kept hoping the Forensics Division might find something, anything. At this point all they had was the passerby who saw the little body floating in the water. She’d interviewed that witness herself.
The only good news was, the child hadn’t been in the water very long. They cased all the cameras in the vicinity, but they hadn’t captured any sign of how the child arrived. Of course, about a one-quarter-mile-long section wasn’t covered by any cameras. Had the killer known no cameras were there? Maybe her team should be looking at somebody who worked the area or for the city workers who had access to the cameras.
Thinking about that, she walked back to her desk, carrying her coffee, and sat down at her computer, doing searches for the traffic cams. Logging into the site that she finally had permission to get into, she checked the city cameras heading into that area an hour before the boy was found. There was some seriously heavy traffic, which made no sense, being a weekday.
If it had been a Friday night, yes, but Thursday night? It seemed like there was even more. She ran the date through another Google page to see if something had been going on in Vancouver. And, of course, there was. It was one of the seasonal games. That would explain some of it but not necessarily all the traffic.
Still, she went through the traffic that headed in that direction, but, because the boy was small, he could have been in a back seat; he could have been in a trunk; he could have been in a truck with a topper, and he could have been in a van. Jason was small enough that he could have been in a duffel bag. She searched every vehicle, noting she had just so many options. Too many to narrow it down. The last deceased male child to be found was in Richmond, a hell of a long way from his home.
Were they related? She brought up that case—a little boy named Tam Wong. He’d been missing for six weeks, before his body was found, showing signs of malnutrition and abuse. Jason had been found nude but wrapped in an overlarge jacket. Oddly enough Tam had been found in a similar scenario; he had been nude except for somebody else’s too-big pants. A zap strap on the feet and a belt around the top held him inside. That alone made these two cases connected.
Looking at that and jotting down notes, she searched through other cases of dead children, looking for mismatched or oversize clothing for the victim or no clothing at all. She came up with a couple others who were possible. One was from six years ago, and another was from four years ago. She frowned because that would be every two years, although the timeline between the last two would have shortened that up. And the oddity in that was a little girl had gone missing four years ago. She’d been four, four and a half, at the time that she’d disappeared, but her body had never been found. So why the hell had it come up on her search? She noted that a pile of clothing had been recovered. It had been her clothing, plus an additional dress that had been too large for her.
“Weird,” she murmured.
She printed off that page and the other ones that she had, gathering the case numbers so she could pull the physical files. She much preferred a hard copy, even though everything was digital these days. She could have asked Reese, their analyst, to pull the material, but she didn’t want to at this point. It could end up being nothing, and everyone was swamped already. It was faster to search in digital but easier on her eyes to review the information in printed copy. She had compiled quite a case file list. She wanted a place to put them all up, but this room didn’t have adequate wall space for it. She frowned, as she connected four more cases similar to Jason’s—one from fifteen years ago and one from eight years ago—and now she had eight.
She got up with the list of case numbers and walked to Colby’s office. He looked up and said, “I hope you’ve got a really big problem that will save me from going to these meetings this afternoon. Maybe a terrorist cell just blew up? Or a serial killer? Have we got a hijacking? Something?”
He looked so hopeful that she had to chuckle. “Most people in our business don’t hope for murder and mayhem.”
“And, of course, I don’t either,” he said, throwing down his pen. “But I really don’t play the political game well.”
“That’s a lie, sir,” she said cheerfully. “You play it very well.”
He looked at her and said, “What are you after? You’re never nice.”
“Ouch,” she said, staring at him. “You don’t have to be so harsh.”
“The truth is the truth,” he said. “What’s in your hand?”
“Eight cases,” she said, wondering if he were serious. Was she such a bitch? Realizing he was waiting, she added, “So far.”
“Eight cases of what?” he asked, his tone hard and cold.
“Eight cases similar to Jason’s.”
His shocked gaze widened; then he shook his head. “No way in hell,” he said. “We would have noticed.”
“Only one thing connects them all,” she said. “The clothing that they were found in didn’t fit.”
He stared at her and crossed his arms over his chest, as he tilted his chair back and kicked his legs up onto the top of the desk. “That’s pretty slim.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s in all of them. Except this one’s a little different.” And she held up the info sheet on Christina.
“What’s different about her?” he asked, reaching for the sheet. She handed it over, and he quickly read it. “I remember this. She went missing, never to be seen of again.”
“Except her clothing was found,” she said.
“That’s not all that unusual,” he said.
“And along with it was another dress that was too big.”
He looked up at her from the piece of paper in his hand. “And your point is?”
“It has the earmarks of the other cases,” she said, “but no body.”
*
Simon shouldn’t have made that 9-1-1 call. He knew he shouldn’t have, and it was really, really pissing him off. But, every once in a while, these visions were so damn strong that he knew he would have to do something about it. And, when he read about it later in the news, he’d been right. But that didn’t mean he should have done it. Anything that could confirm it was his voice would just get him into deep water. He already knew the cops would use every angle, every bit of evidence against Simon, and there would be absolutely no way to back out of the mess.
Life sucked, and then you die.
That was the motto he’d heard. But his was the opposite. Life sucked; you made it better, so it sucked less.
Still there’d just been something about this murder, and Simon knew that somehow that guy would walk if Simon didn’t turn him in.
It didn’t make any sense because what he had done was so clear-cut, but Simon couldn’t take the chance. He hated the fact tha
t now, all of a sudden, he was this Good Samaritan. He knew shit happened, but he didn’t want to be the one who was around when it did. He could take care of his own, and he had many times, but no way in hell did he want to start taking care of everyone else. He’d pulled himself out of the gutter and planned to never go back. Nothing ugly was allowed to touch his world. And it didn’t, at least on the physical side. But, for whatever reason, somehow something had gotten in under his skin and into his psyche.
And he was unnerved enough to worry about it.
When his phone rang a few minutes later, he answered it. “What?”
First came silence, and then a female said, “This is Detective Morgan. You came in to speak with me a few days ago.”
“Oh,” he said, and immediately images of the tall, lean, physically fit detective flooded through his mind. Chestnut-colored hair, huge chocolate-colored eyes, wide mobile mouth. He was always hungry—in one way or another—when he thought of her. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“Do you have any other details?” she asked. “On the boy, Jason.”
“You mean, you believe me?” He snorted. “Guess that makes you more the fool than me. And, no, I don’t have any more details for you. Thanks for calling.” He hung up. And once again he tossed his phone. It was becoming a habit. If he could toss it away, then he could also toss away his connection to the world, as if that act would cleanse his soul.
Needing to get away, he walked to the bakery, ordered a bagel from behind the counter, and then walked to the butcher, where he picked up some fresh cheese and ham. By the time he was on his way home, he was hungry and stressed. He slowly rotated his neck and his shoulders, choosing to walk up the flights of stairs in his building and maybe wear himself out a little bit more. By the time he made it to his apartment, instead he was even more irritable.
He walked to his door and unlocked it, then pushed it open. His phone rang. He let it. When it finally stopped, he said, “Good riddance.”
He put down his purchases, then checked the ID of his caller. The detective. He frowned. If he didn’t answer her, she would probably hound him.
Then he noted four other missed calls. “I was gone thirty minutes,” he snapped to the empty room.
He put the phone carefully on the counter, as he brought out the bagel, sliced it, then buttered the halves.
He knew the cop couldn’t stand him already. He didn’t know where the restrained animosity came from, but it was there. And, considering her job, he probably didn’t have to look very far to find reasons why.
His Quebec-born grandmother had had the sight—after all, that was what led her to finding Simon at the age of six, and he would go as far as to say that maybe he had inherited a little bit of her ability. But he didn’t want more than that. He had only had four years with her, but her gift was not something that had made his grandmother’s life any easier. On the contrary, it just made it harder and more impossible. She’d been both revered and hated. Who the hell needed that? His grandmother had warned him once that, the moment he went down this pathway, there was no turning back. Pas de retour en arrière. He’d laughed at her. Ne pas y aller. Not going there.
She’d given him that narrow glare that she’d been so damn good at and said he didn’t have a choice; he was already on it.
He stared at his phone and wished to hell that whatever that first misstep was, he hadn’t taken it. Grandma had been proven right, and he knew that this one-way path would only get worse.
Chapter 5
Third Monday of June
The days just slammed hard from one day into the next. Somehow it was the third Monday of June already. Kate worked her ass off all day, every day, and crashed blindly every night. Nothing like the pain of trying to figure out what had happened to a missing or a murdered child. It brought up all kinds of memories that Kate tried to dampen down. And it wasn’t working. The longer she worked on Jason’s case, the more she thought about Timmy, her kid brother. She’d pulled up everything there was on his case and had nothing, absolutely nothing to show for it.
Her brother had gone missing two and a half decades ago. Kate had been responsible for looking after him, but one moment he was there, and the next he was gone. Her mother had blamed her ever since, never relenting from that position, placing her in foster care immediately. Even after her mother had been in rehab several times, her phone calls were nothing but a sickening tirade over and over again about how Kate had ruined her mother’s life by letting Timmy die. Now in a long-term-care facility, her mother was nothing if not consistent in the verbal and mental abuse that she rained on Kate.
Fact of the matter was, Timmy had been five. But Kate herself had only been seven. And she’d been put in charge of her younger brother. When she’d come out of her classroom to find him on the playground, she’d forgotten her homework, so ran back inside to grab her books, and, when she returned, he was gone. But she was to blame.
Somehow a seven-year-old had paid a price that should never have been put on a child. And she’d never stopped looking for her brother. Anytime a John Doe showed up, anytime a child was found, even after decades, Kate’s heart leaped. And anytime they found a tiny corpse, decomposed beyond recognition, she knew instinctively that it was him—only to be proven over and over that it wasn’t.
Nobody here knew how bad her childhood had been. No one here knew about her secret guilt or why she held up prickly barriers against the world. A couple knew about her brother but only that he’d gone missing. Not the details of how her life had derailed at that point. And how could she explain that the people who should have been there for her weren’t and the people who she should have been there for were gone?
She trusted herself, but she didn’t trust anybody else. That made for a pretty tough working relationship. But she’d do whatever the hell she had to do to keep this job because this was what she’d wanted, ever since her brother had gone missing. Come hell or high water, this was her role in life. And she was bound and determined that she would find her little brother. Somehow …
“Penny? You know? … For your thoughts?”
She frowned and looked up to see a smooth, way-too-expensively-dressed, and overly coiffed Andy—their fifth team member. “Not worth it. Isn’t there some broad you’re supposed to be picking up for dinner?”
“That’s tonight,” he said. “You really need to get your timing straight.”
“And my jokes apparently,” she said. She studied him. “You’re looking pretty dolled up. Did you even go home last night?”
“Of course I didn’t go home,” he said. “I never do. That’s the way I like it. You do know if you’d loosen up a little bit yourself, you might like it too.”
“I, at least, like to know the name of the person I sleep with,” she drawled.
He flushed.
And she stared. “Oh. My. God. You can’t remember who the hell it was last night, can you? So they all roll into this jumbled mess of images? Is that it? What do they call that? A collage, that’s it,” she said triumphantly. “A collage of faces. The bodies have the prerequisite parts but, other than that, not a bit of difference between them.”
He stared at her, shocked.
She shrugged. “What the hell?” she said. “Too crude for your refined sensibilities? Am I not allowed?”
“No,” he said. “You’re supposed to be sweet and feminine.”
“Then I’m in the wrong job,” she said bluntly. “Don’t get me wrong. Sex is good for everybody,” she said. “But, when you have so much, with so many different partners, that you can’t even remember who the hell you’re with”—she checked her watch—“like four hours ago, you’ve got to ask yourself, Who or what are you running from?”
With that, she grabbed her coffee cup and headed out of the room. An odd silence filled the bullpen behind her. She shouldn’t antagonize everybody, but, since she’d joined the detective division, replacing Chet, incurring the obvious animosity of the rest of the
team, she had instinctively come out swinging, before anybody could get under her skin.
She sipped her coffee and stared out the window, trying to relax. This Jason case was getting to her. She needed to find something, anything to give to the parents, to give to her sergeant, to give to the rest of the team. If she could find a crack, they all would be there to pry it wide open. However without that crack … Damn it. Her sergeant had been beyond upset at her eight cases, and he’d asked her to go deeper, to make sure that there was absolutely no mistake.
The connection was slim, but it was there. The thought that a child pedophile, a serial killer, had been operating for that long here in the city was bad news. The fact that she had been the one to find the connection would also not go down well with her team. Or that she’d kept her finding from them. She knew of and had worked with the Missing Persons Division irregularly, depending on whether their cases overlapped. But, when it came to children, everybody was affected, no matter what department.
When someone behind her called out, she turned and looked at Lilliana. “What’s up?”
“I would ask you that,” she said. Lilliana, ever-perfect, sauntered closer, holding her delicate china mug full of coffee. “You’re even more abrasive than usual.”
“It’s the case. Is that an issue?”
“No,” she said. “We were pretty rough on you, when you first got here, but we thought, by now, things would have calmed down.”
“And they probably will,” she said, “but they haven’t yet.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilliana said. “I was one of the forerunners, who chewed into you pretty good when you first arrived.”
“It’s never easy replacing somebody,” Kate said. “And, in this case, there’s no replacing Chet, but his seat needed to be filled, and I got the job.”
“And we know that,” she said, “and, of course, he was a good friend of ours. Seeing that chair and not seeing the big guy there every day is still really hard for everyone.”